Asmus Finzen

Asmus Finzen

Asmus Finzen (born February 24, 1940 on a farm near Taarstedt in fishing in the Schleswig-Flensburg district ) is a doctor, professor of social psychiatry , and science journalist .

Life

After graduating from the cathedral school in Schleswig in 1959, he studied medicine and sociology from 1959 to 1965 in Hamburg , Berlin , Tübingen and Kiel . From 1966 to 1968 the time as a medical assistant in Bad Segeberg , Nevers / France, Kiel, Tübingen and Gießen and then further training as a doctor for psychiatry and psychotherapy with Walter Schulte and Rainer Tölle in Tübingen. In 1968 he received his doctorate in Kiel. In the same year Finzen met Ronald D. Laing . This influence was reinforced in 1969 through contacts with the social psychiatric group John Wing and Douglas Bennett, the director of the day clinic at Maudsley Hospital .

From 1969 he became involved in the relatives' movement and, since 1985, also for the newly founded Federal Association of Relatives for the Mentally Ill (BApK). In 1971 he was a co-founder of Aktion Psychisch Kranke eV . In 1970 he was a founding member and board member of the German Society for Social Psychiatry (DGSP).

From 1969 Finzen published in the FAZ , later in the NZZ until the 1990s, as well as for the journals Social Psychiatry of the DGSP, “ Dr. med. Mabuse ”,“ Psychosocial Review ”and“ Social Psychiatric Information ”. Finzen was co-founder and editor of the socio-psychiatrically oriented journal “Psychiatrische Praxis” from 1974 to 2007. In 1977 he co-founded the Psychiatrie Verlag, in 1994 co-founder “Edition Das Narrenschiff”.

Since 1970 he has been teaching social psychiatry and medical sociology in Tübingen. 1973 followed his habilitation ; from 1974 he held lectures as a professor for social psychiatry in Tübingen, from 1978 at the Hannover Medical School , from 1988 at the University of Basel .

Since opening a day clinic at the University of Tübingen in 1972, Finzen has been a champion of day psychiatric treatment, which he viewed as an alternative to permanent inpatient treatment in psychiatric institutions. This community-based concept also included the opening of psychiatric departments at general hospitals. From 1971 to 1975 he worked for the Psychiatry Enquête .

As director of the Lower Saxony State Hospital in Wunstorf from 1975 to 1987 and professor at the Medical University of Hanover, he tried to put the psychiatric reform ideas into concrete terms. His works Die Tagesklinik - Psychiatrie als Lebensschule and Das Ende der Anstalt illustrate this. In 1981 Finzen took on a visiting professorship in Lausanne . In the same year he began an advisory role in the Federal Ministry of Health . From 1987 to 2003 he was Deputy Medical Director and Head of General and Social Psychiatry at the University Psychiatric Clinics in Basel . There he built up a social psychiatric department with a focus on schizophrenic diseases.

Publications (selection)

• Doctor, patient and society . The orientation of the medical professional role to social reality. G. Fischer, Stuttgart 1969, DNB 456619151 .
• Arguments for a community-based psychiatry (habilitation thesis). Workshop writings on social psychiatry 10, 1974, 4th edition 1979.
• The psychiatry inquiry in a nutshell (with Hilde Schädle-Deininger). Workshop publications on social psychiatry 15, 1976.
• The day clinic . Psychiatry as a school of life. Piper, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-492-00458-X .
• The family group . Families with mentally ill people on the way to self-help. (Ed. With MC Angermeyer). Enke, 1984.
• The end of the institution . The tedious everyday life of the psychiatry reform. Psychiatrie Verlag, 1985.
• The patient suicide . Psychiatrie Verlag, 1988, 2nd edition 1990.
• Suicide prevention in mental disorders . Psychiatrie Verlag, 1989, 4th edition. Psychiatrie Verlag and Thieme Verlag, 1997.
• What is social psychiatry? (Ed. With Ulrike Hoffmann-Richter), Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-88414-170-8 .
• Mass murder without feeling guilty . Edition Das Narrenschiff. Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 1996, 3-88414-197-X (1st version: Auf dem Dienstweg, 1984).
• The Pinel pendulum . The Dimension of the Social in the Age of Biological Psychiatry. Edition Das Narrenschiff. Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-88414-287-9 .
• Psychosis and stigma . Psychiatrie Verlag 2000, 2nd edition 2003 (Russian 2001).
• A Brief History of the Psychiatric Day Clinic . Edition Das Narrenschiff. Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-88414-354-9 .
• Drug treatment for mental disorders. Psychiatrie Verlag 1979, 14th edition 2004, new version: 2nd edition 2009.
• The death of others . Euthanasia in discussion. Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 2009, ISBN 978-3-86739-047-7 .
• Schizophrenia. Understanding, treating, coping with the disease. Psychiatrie Verlag, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-96605-046-3 .
• Why are our sick people actually getting well again? Argue about healing. Edition Das Narrenschiff. Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-88414-303-4 . New edition: Mabuse-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-86321-023-6 .

Web links

• resume
• Internet publications: Overview of the psychiatry network