There will be two main foci to this presentation. Firstly, Designing and implementing a new educational program entitled “Women victims of domestic violence: Detection, clinic, help” – that is mainly based on the teaching of several modules, WPA International Curriculum for Mental Healthcare Providers on Violence Against Women. Our program is a follow-on to the one held during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, at which interest was expressed in sharing ideas and resources. Secondly, Informing on the recent trends in Russian perinatal psychiatry. This covers the psychiatric training in the assessment domain, case management, and service evaluation. We will introduce and review some resources for use in women’s mental health practicals, propose innovative pedagogical structures for practical teachings, such as Problem Based Learning, ’Vicarious Learning,’ and encourage discussion of how the practical aspects of women’s mental health teaching can be supported and enhanced. Teaching modules and training pathways will be delivered (“not too much; not too little and in the right order”), and dimensions of quality in continuing professional development in women’s mental health (i.e., Sophistication, Credibility, Timeliness, and Utility) will be outlined. This will be followed by a discussion exploring the different prioritization of the teaching modules across various organizations. We urge our audience to consider it is time for psychiatric training in women’s mental health to move from the margins to the center.

This editorial introduces a special issue of BJPsych Advances on neuroscience in 21st-century psychiatry. It focuses on two articles in particular, which reveal the contributions of neuroscience to fully integrated biopsychosocial models of human experience.

Junior doctors who trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital between 1965 to 1975 were followed up at a mean of 17 years to ascertain whether pre-psychiatric experience or performance during training could predict future career paths. The most consistent predictor of a career in academic psychiatry was involvement in research during training.

In May 1992 the German Council of Physicians decided that in the future there will no longer be a specialist in psychiatry, but, only a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. This decision has enormous consequences for the psychiatric training of residents specializing in the field in Germany. Psychotherapy is now an integral part of psychiatry and must be completely included in training programs. The period of advanced training in the future will encompass five years instead of four years. The future curriculum for psychiatrists is far more structured and includes many more regulations than was formerly the case. The specialist in the field must acquire equal competence on the somatic, social-psychiatric, psychopathological and psychotherapeutic levels, followed by their subsequent integration into diagnosis and therapy. Practical experience in psychotherapy must be acquired in both a primary and secondary method. The only methods capable of recognition as the primary method are psychodynamic psychotherapy and behaviour-cognitive therapy. The secondary method will be restricted to psychodynamic psychotherapy, behaviour-cognitive therapy and client-centered therapy. The principle aim of the new specialist physician regulations in Germany is to achieve a multi-dimensional approach to the diagnoses and treatment of psychiatric disorders corresponding to the complex nature of psychiatric illness.

Evolutionary science can serve as the high-level organising principle for understanding psychiatry. Evolutionary concepts generate new models and ideas for future psychiatric study, research, policy and therapy. The authors accordingly make the case for the inclusion of evolutionary biology in the postgraduate education of psychiatric trainees.

The feasibility and effectiveness of trainee psychiatrists providing CBT in primary care was assessed by a triangulated procedure of service overview, trainee feedback and assessment of clinical measures. Hitherto trainees sought ‘suitable’ cases by individual request. In the primary-care setting: 82% of 11 trainees (50% previously) completed a ‘short case’ treatment within a 6-month attachment; 86% of trainees found the level of supervision ‘about right’; depression and anxiety scores for patients (n = 16) achieved statistically significant gains and showed moderate to large effect sizes. Although there was no comparator group, findings were just above the IAPT aim of a 50% recovery. Conclusions are that completion of their ‘short case’ experience within a 6-month attachment is feasible in a primary-care setting. Evidence that patients and the service also benefited demonstrates this to be good and ethical ‘business’ for the service provider. Integrating these skills into routine medical psychiatric practice may remain a later supervision need. Other training experiences including psychological treatments could initially be best met in less testing clinical encounters than those experienced in secondary care. Locally agreed formal arrangements would facilitate this and there is potential for the development of greater cross-service understanding in the longer term.

Competencies for psychiatric training have been developed that reflect what psychiatrists have to be able to do in order to function in their role. Although the need for a formally delivered psychotherapy experience is assumed and associated competencies are represented in the curriculum, it is not clear which competencies thereby achieved can be translated into generic practice. This paper reports the outcomes of a workshop held at an academic regional meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Potential competencies to be achieved following training and experience in CBT were presented. Small group review of the frameworks and subsequent feedback demonstrated broad support for requirements of CBT knowledge and attitudinal competencies that could inform day-to-day practice, within a generic psychotherapeutic skills framework. New competencies that were related to CBT and considered meaningful in daily psychiatric practice emerged. Further development of these ideas from the workshop in this paper leads to a set of coherent competencies that would be helpful in non-CBT specialist practice and are congruent with the context of generic psychiatric practice. These enable models of training other than the delivery of a single ‘brief’ psychotherapy case to be considered.

A period of psychiatric training in New Zealand is relatively easy to organise and provides opportunities not available locally. This article illustrates some of the similarities and differences between Irish and New Zealand psychiatry and provides advice on how to arrange a placement.