Continuing Friendship in the Face of European Destruction and European Construction: The European Conference on Psychosomatic Research

Will there be another 29 conferences? What would a 58th ECPR conference in 2071 be like? As the author of this text, I would say that the history of the ECPR is the history of a friendship between two men – two pioneers of psychosomatics in Europe. It is the history of an interpersonal relationship in postwar Europe. This relationship continued even after the death of the two men. They are Joannes Juda Groen (1903–1990) and Archibald Denis Leigh (1915–1998). J.J. Groen was a specialist in internal medicine; first he was Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief Physician at the Wilhelmina Gasthuis, University of Amsterdam, later he became a Professor of Internal Medicine at the Medical School of the Hadassah University in Jerusalem, and finally, when he was an Emeritus Professor, head of a psychobiological unit. Involved in the latter was also J. Bastiaans, a former pupil of his, and a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Leiden. Denis Leigh was a neurologist, who sometimes also practised as a neurosurgeon and later – and most importantly – as a psychiatrist. He was consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley and Bethlem Hospital in London. At the same time, he was an inspiring university and college lecturer (Royal College of Psychiatrists). (1) ‘Man is a social animal living in a human culture’ [1, 2] : The European Conference on Psychosomatic Research and its culture are built upon the foundation of friendship, initiative, and lasting commitment