On the Retirement of Prof. Dr. Dr. Ambros Uchtenhagen

1995 will be an important year for social psychiatry in Switzerland and in Europe. Ambros Uchtenhagen, one of the most productive and innovative researchers, will retire and leave the University of Zurich. It is therefore time to remember his extraordinary career as a great psychiatrist. Ambros Uchtenhagen was born in Basel in 1928; he attended school in Basel and Freiburg i.Br., studied philosophy, history of art and sociology in Zurich and graduated with a PhD in 1954. Thereafter he studied medicine in Zurich until 1959; following specialist training as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, he graduated as a doctor of medicine in 1963. In the same year he became a senior physician at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Zurich under Manfred Bleuler. Since 1970, his main interest has been the new social psychiatric service of the Psychiatric University Clinic, which became an independent division of the clinic in 1974. As its first director, he established several well-known innovative services. In 1975 he entered the Zurich Faculty of Medicine for psychiatry, in particular social psychiatry, and in 1977 he became associated professor for social psychiatry. Together with the two other clinic directors, Ernst and Angst, he was in charge of undergraduate and post-graduate teaching. In 1992 he became full professor for social psychiatry. Subsequently Uchtenhagen established an interdisciplinary research and documentation group and a bibliographic research service for all aspects of social psychiatry. Uchtenhagen’s research focused on the course of illness and the evaluation of psychosis and addiction disorders. In 1976 he started a cohort study on the course of opiate dependency in all regions of Switzerland, financed by the Swiss National Fund. The study was followed by a systematic documentation of the course and linked with therapeutic insitutions for drug addicts. This data pool permits specific studies on aetiology, influence of course and of behaviour with respect to risk of HIV infection. Since 1986 he has participated in multi-state studies of the European Community (epidemiology of addictive disorders, epidemiology of HIV infection and risk behaviour among drug users). Uchtenhagen has been a scientific advisor to the WHO since 1975 (epidemiological field studies, preparation for and contributions to closed meetings of experts on drug dependency and social psychiatric care in Europe, the USA, Latin America, Asia and Africa). He is a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence and Alcohol Problems. At the national level, he is a member of the Federal Narcotics Commission and of the Subcommission for Drug Issues. This has led to specific research on behalf of the Federal Office of Public Health in the field of narcotics legislation and dependency patterns. He is also the author of the 1984 and 1989 Swiss scientific reports on methadone as well as the president of the Zurich Drug Commission, and the