Ambros Uchtenhagen

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Ambros Uchtenhagen (1986)

Ambros Uchtenhagen (born August 23, 1928 in Basel ) is a Swiss psychiatrist , psychoanalyst , university professor and addiction specialist .

Life

Uchtenhagen's mother came from a family of craftsmen in Basel ; the father was interned as a German professional officer in Switzerland during the First World War , accepted Swiss citizenship and found work in the commercial sector. Uchtenhagen has two brothers.

After several changes of location and school, Uchtenhagen finally attended the cantonal secondary school in Zurich, which he graduated with the Matura in 1947 . Uchtenhagen graduated from the University of Zurich with a degree in philosophy and then added a degree in medicine . According to his own statements, Uchtenhagen was shaped by the humanists Ernesto Grassi , who taught as a visiting lecturer in Zurich, and René König , who later headed the Sociological Institute at the University of Cologne . Contact with both remained for a long time. His doctoral supervisor Hans Barth approved a dissertation on power theories from Plato to Machiavelli . At the same time, Uchtenhagen completed a training analysis with Gustav Bally .

After graduating, Uchtenhagen trained as a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. From 1977 until his retirement in 1995 he was Professor of Social Psychiatry and Director of the Social Psychiatric Service, later: Director of the Psychiatric University Clinic Zurich , Sector West.

Ambros Uchtenhagen was married to Lilian Uchtenhagen from 1956 until her death in 2016 , who became known as one of the first national councilors in Switzerland and a candidate for the Federal Council . The social policy path of the SP and corresponding values ​​were essential for both. In 1966 the couple took in three Malagasy orphans who were brought to Switzerland by Terre des Hommes .

Social psychiatry

Ambros Uchtenhagen is one of the founders of social psychiatry in Switzerland. From 1970 he built up the social psychiatric service at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Zurich , a network of outpatient, day care and inpatient care for people with psychosis, addiction and the mentally old. He is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Addiction and Health Research. He also works as an expert for the World Health Organization (WHO), particularly in developing countries. Uchtenhagen is a member of the WHO expert panel on drugs and acts as Vice President (until early July 2018 President) of the Foundation for Addiction Research based in Zurich

Uchtenhagen was a member and for a long time a board member of SGGG .

Drug policy

Ambros Uchtenhagen was an advisor to the parliamentary commissions in the 1975 revision of the Narcotics Act, which enabled the repressive measures to be tightened. In the dispute over syringes dispensed and exchanged in 1985/1986, Uchtenhagen represented the repressive ideology of the Zurich health department. Until at least 1992 Ambros Uchtenhagen opposed harm reduction and the sale of heroin; the priority goals for him were abstinence, therapy and drug withdrawal. The Zurich Institute for Addiction Research founded by Uchtenhagen evaluated the federal heroin tests (Prove) .

Publications

  • Studies on the theory of power from Plato to Machiavelli. Iuris Verlag, Zurich 1963.
  • with D. Zimmer-Höfler: Heroin addicts and their “normal” peers. Origin, life situation and two-year course in a cross comparison. Haupt, Bern 1985.
  • with N. Jovic (ed.): Mental disorders in old age: dealing well with one's own age and that of others. Fachverlag, Zurich 1990.
  • with A. Dobler-Mikola and T. Steffen (eds.): Narcotics prescription for heroin addicts: most important results of the Swiss cohort study. Karger, Basel 2000.
  • with W. Zieglgänsberger (ed.): Addiction medicine: concepts, strategies and therapeutic management. Urban & Fischer, Munich 2000.
  • Drug abuse treatment in the prison milieu: a review of the evidence. In: Council of Europe (Ed.): Prisons, Drugs and Society. Strasbourg 2002, pp. 79-98.
  • Reorientation of medicine - what is happening in the international environment? In: J. Bircher, W. Stauffacher (Ed.): Future Medicine Switzerland. Basel 2003.
  • Loss of control and behavioral control. In: J. Rink (Ed.): The search for control. From abstinence addiction to control addiction Geesthacht 2004, pp. 14–23.
  • Health and disease concepts: their components and their importance for diagnostics, therapy, assessment. In: G. Riemer-Kafka (Ed.): Medizinische Gutachten Zürich 2005, pp. 9–34.
  • Utopian elements in the sciences of the psyche. In: B. Sitter-Lievers (Ed.) Utopie heute II. On the current meaning, function and criticism of utopian thinking and imagining. Stuttgart 2007, pp. 155-188.
  • with U. Solberg: Guidelines for the evaluation of treatment in the field of problem drug use. A manual for researchers and professionals. European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon 2007.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the minutes of the federal councils, the commissions of the National Council and the Council of States had Prof. Uchtenhagen show them his institutions. His wife National Councilor Liliane Uchtenhagen regretted the introduction of compulsory measures against the sole consumption of drugs in the National Council, but above all she criticized the insufficient financial resources for the therapeutic measures. Social psychiatric therapy is expensive. The right-wing minority of the Council criticized the revision of the law in vain for the fact that, in quantitative terms, therapy can never be a sufficiently suitable means of dealing with drug problems. It was known that sufficient therapeutic capacities were beyond financial affordability. Ultimately, the legislature, with its drug policy consensus in 1975, trusted an expansion of repressive means.
  2. ↑ Zurich guidelines for the dispensing of medical syringes from December 31, 1985: Once a week, registered drug addicts should receive a (sic!) Sterile syringe and needle by stamping a reference card. Ambros Uchtenhagen wrote on January 15th, 1986: The syringe dispensing «is intended to prevent damage to physical health - especially also to third parties - through risk infections. However, it can only fulfill this function if certain precautionary measures are taken. In addition, it mostly contradicts the primary therapeutic objective of making it easier for the drug addict to achieve abstinence ... The prescription of injection material should be accompanied by a therapeutic contact that tries to work towards a treatment of the addiction. As a rule, the prescription of injection material should be a temporary measure, not a permanent measure. " A. Uchtenhagen's comment on guidelines for dispensing syringes from January 1986
  3. ↑ Dorothee Vögeli: Interview with Ruth Dreifuss and Ambros Uchtenhagen: The state must regulate the drug market and get the dangers under control. Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ, August 24, 2018, accessed on May 8, 2020 .
  4. ↑ In the methadone guidelines that he wrote for the Health Department of the Canton of Zurich in 1987, 1990 and 1991, Uchtenhagen explicitly insists on the primacy of abstinence in the treatment of substituted opioid addicts. He rejected a low-threshold methadone dispensing not geared towards psychotherapy and abstinence, as well as the dispensing of heroin. In the commentary on the guidelines for methadone-assisted treatment of heroin addicts from June 11, 1991, Uchtenhagen writes: "Methadone-assisted treatment is a treatment of second choice ... Withdrawal and withdrawal treatments aimed at abstaining from opiates have first priority."
  5. ↑ Ambros Uchtenhagen: Zurich methadone guidelines 1996. In: www.seidenberg.ch. Retrieved May 24, 2020 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Uchtenhagen, Ambros
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, university professor and addiction specialist
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel