The
American Psychiatric Association (
APA) is the main
professional organization of
psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the
United States, and the most influential worldwide. Its some 38,000 members are mainly
American but some are international. The association publishes various journals and pamphlets, as well as the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. The DSM codifies psychiatric conditions and is used worldwide as a key guide to diagnosing disorders.
The abbreviation 'APA' is also in common and similar usage by the American Psychological Association and their 'APA style guide' for journal articles.
At a meeting in 1844 in Philadelphia, 13 superintendents and organizers of insane asylums and hospitals formed the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII). The group included Thomas Kirkbride creator of the asylum model which was used throughout the United States. At the meeting they passed the first proposition of the new organization "It is the unanimous sense of this convention that the attempt to abandon entirely the use of all means of personal restraint is not sanctioned by the true interests of the insane."[1]
The name of the organization was changed in 1892 to The American Medico-Psychological Association to allow assistant physicians working in mental hospitals to become members.
