Surname:

Veltin

First name:

Alexander

Era:

20th century
21st century

Field of expertise:

Neurology
Psychiatry
Social psychiatry

Place of birth:

(DEU)

* 21.12.1921

† 26.02.2013

German psychiatrist and active supporter of the psychiatric reform of the 1970s.

Alexander Veltin (1921-2013) began his professional career in 1952 at the University of Tübingen’s psychiatric clinic. Between 1961 and 1972, he worked at the psychiatric state hospital Westfälisches Landeskrankenhaus in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, where he strongly advocated the model of a “therapeutic community” (M. Jones) as it had been developed in England. He became director of the psychiatric state hospital Rheinische Landesklinik in Mönchengladbach-Rheydt, Northrhine-Westphalia, in 1972 and held this post until 1983. Under his direction, the clinic was developed into a model institution for community service provision. Its newly established center for social psychiatry (Sozialpsychologisches Zentrum (SPZ) set an example for the whole state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Veltin worked for the expert commission, appointed by the German parliament in 1971, whose 1975 report Mental Health Care in the Federal Republic of Germany heralded the psychiatric reform of the 1970s and 1980s. He also founded the Association for the Rehabilitation of the Mentally Ill (Verein zur Rehabilitation psychisch Kranker e.V.) in Mönchengladbach, among other activities. He published his last book Die Anstaltsfamilie - a collection of essays on the principle of the therapeutic community - in 2013 shortly before his death.

Literature

Krüger, H., V. Zumpe, V. (2013): Nachruf Dr. Alexander Veltin. In: Psychiatrische Praxis 40, (7), S. 368.

Veltin, A. (1969): Die therapeutische Gruppe im Spannungsfeld der klinischen Institution. In: Gruppenpsychotherapie und Gruppendynamik 3, (1), S. 121-128.

Veltin, A. (1960): Zum Problem der extrapyramidalen Bewegungsstörungen bei Medikation psychotroper Drogen. In: Pharmacology2 (2/4), S. 141-147.

Veltin, A., B. Dimmek (1983): Aufbau und Inanspruchnahme psychiatrischer Dienste in einem großstädtischen Gemeinwesen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

Veltin, A. (1986). Leitfaden zur tagesklinischen Behandlung. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

Veltin, A. (2013): Die Anstaltsfamilie. Köln: Psychiatrie-Verlag.

Ansgar Fabri