Professor Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich: biography, achievements, family and interesting facts

A talented psychiatrist and outstanding expert in serial killers Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich became a real pride of Russian science. His name is usually associated with the loud case of Andrei Chikatilo. Indeed, the exposure of the most terrible maniac of our time is a direct merit of the Rostov scholar. However, not only participation in his capture is known Bukhanovsky. The psychiatrist created his own school, made many discoveries, raised the Russian science to a new level. The life path of Bukhanovsky is woven from achievements and great deeds, which sometimes remain in the shadow of the history of the Rostov necrosadist. Let's look at the biography of this amazing person.

Bukhanovsky Alexander: Biography

The future genius of psychiatry appeared on February 22, 1944, in the city of Grozny. He was the son of an American businessman, Joseph Strassberg and dentist Evelina Sarkisyants. Surname and unusual patronymic psychiatrist gave the second husband of his mother - an engineer, Maksimovich Bukhanovsky.

The life path of the scientist, as he himself repeatedly noted in interviews, was largely predetermined by his family. Mother's example and grandmother's stories about his grandfather Aram Sarkisyants, one of the founders of the healthcare system in Chechnya, aroused in Bukhanovsky a passionate love for medicine, which he carried through his whole life.

After seven classes of school, he enrolled in the Chechen-Ingush Medical School. His Bukhanovsky graduated with honors. The desire for knowledge led the future psychiatrist to his second home.

Choice of life path

Having worked as a paramedic, Bukhanovsky continued his studies in Rostov-on-Don. This city later became the main field of its activity. Bukhanovsky was repeatedly invited to work in Moscow and abroad, but he remained a patriot, which made him an atypical figure in the world of science. Already in the first year of the Rostov Medical Institute Bukhanovsky began to show interest in psychiatry, replaced by a fervent love for this subject.

He graduated from the university with a red diploma, and in 1970, after two years of service as a doctor in Severomorsk, he returned and finally linked his fate with the Department of Psychiatry. Bukhanovsky worked in residency, enrolled in graduate school, soon began to teach. And in 1996 he was appointed the head of the department, which, under the guidance of a scientist, became one of the largest in the university.

Creative activity

And this is only the beginning of the energetic activity, which Alexander Bukhanovsky deployed at the institute. The psychiatrist's biography is a storehouse of achievements. With his participation, the Department of Psychiatry was established with the course of medical psychology and psychotherapy of the FPK. Bukhanovsky himself formed a teaching staff. He included many of his students, who by that time had achieved significant professional success. The chair held many international forums, in particular, on serial killings. Bukhanovsky was president on them.

The "Department of Psychiatry and Narcology of the FPK and PPS", founded by him in 2005, also enjoyed authority. Like the previous two, it eventually became the head department of postgraduate education in the Southern Federal District. Later, Bukhanovsky handed them over to his students.

His book bibliography deserves special attention. Bukhanovsky AO wrote six monographs, ten teaching aids, among them - "General Psychopathology." The book has survived several publications and is still respected among his colleagues. The psychiatrist co-wrote the manual for physicians in two volumes of the International Handbook on Psychopathic Disorders and the Law, for which he received the Guttmacher Award. In total, Bukhanovsky wrote more than four hundred printed works.

Discoveries in the field of genetics of schizophrenia

As some of his students say, the main value for the scientist has always been freedom, perhaps, therefore, he undertook very controversial and even taboo topics. In 1969, Bukhanovsky was seriously interested in the genetics of schizophrenia. At that time there was almost no literature on this phenomenon, and he had no wide access to foreign publications. And the very theme of power is not that forbidden, but not approved. However, several works of genetics of Stalin's time Bukhanovsky found. On their basis, the psychiatrist wrote and defended in 1978 an outstanding Ph.D. thesis, which became a real breakthrough in the field of psychiatry. Bukhanovsky proved that schizophrenia, in fact, is not a social, but a primary biological disease.

Taboo topics in the research activity of AO Bukhanovsky

In the late 70's he began to actively study the problem of transsexualism. In the USSR, this topic was classified as banned, and for the sex-change operation , criminal liability was provided. Bukhanovsky was even summoned to the Party Committee, where they openly made it clear that a true Communist should not engage in such research, which, however, did not stop the psychiatrist. Patients came to him from all over the country, and Bukhanovsky continued to work with them. He proved that in most of his transsexualism there are other perversions, and sex change in many cases is an unnecessary operation. Having accumulated a huge material for those times material, he in 1994 defended on this topic doctoral. And this is not the only work that Bukhanovsky AO created within the framework of this problem. The books "The Structural-Dynamic Hierarchy of the Human Sex" and "Transsexualism in Russia" also became the property of the scientific community.

Loud success: the case of AR Chikatilo

However, the real popularity of the scientist was brought about by successes in the field of criminal psychiatry, connected with the Rostov maniac Andrey Chikatilo. For Bukhanovsky himself, participation in his search was unexpected. Desperate to find the killer, captain Viktor Burakov came to ask for help from a psychiatrist. Bukhanovsky at first did not agree, because such problems were not part of his interests. But when Burakov showed him pictures of mutilated, tormented children, the psychiatrist decided to seriously tackle the maniac's case, because his daughter Olga was then 15 years old, and she was also in danger.

Based on investigative data Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich compiled a psychological portrait of the criminal. Above him, he worked nights through, went to the crime scene together with the investigation team. The prospective portrait of the murderer was 70 pages of text and coincided 85% with the real person Chikatilo.

In 1990, a maniac was caught, but there was not enough evidence to prove his involvement in the numerous murders. Chikatilo himself remained silent and did not come into contact with the investigative authorities. Bukhanovsky was interrogated for questioning. In conversation with the maniac, the psychiatrist refrained from evaluating his actions. On the contrary, he showed that he understands why Chikatilo became a monster, treated him like a man. It was then that the murderer opened. Chikatilo sobbed like a child, cursing everyone around, and confessed to all the crimes committed by him.

Breakthrough in the field of criminal psychiatry

Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich made an invaluable contribution to the study of the phenomenon of serial killers and to the formation of law enforcement agencies of Russia, who before his lectures on criminal psychiatry were not aware of what they were dealing with. The authority of the scientist has become limitless. His psychiatrist conducted his lectures even in the US at the FBI Academy, where he was later awarded the Interpol award. Bukhanovsky also worked as a consultant to the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

Rostov-on-Don became the leader in the detection of crimes committed by sex maniacs. Bukhanovsky himself disclosed the factors that influence the formation of the serial killer's personality: organic brain damage, weak sexual constitution and unhappy childhood. The psychiatrist said that it is possible to recognize the future maniac before the first offense committed by him, and this pathology can be treated, which he later devoted himself to.

LNNC "Phoenix" - the brainchild of AO Bukhanovsky

In 1991 Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich opened the scientific and treatment and rehabilitation center "Phoenix", which became famous not only in Russia, but also abroad. There doctors still provide assistance on a contract basis to people suffering from any kind of mental disorders.

The center accepts people with a predisposition to serial killings. And they can be treated anonymously. Such rules have caused a lot of horror and outrage among the public, because, in fact, potential rapists remain at large, and their existence is not even suspected by the investigative authorities. But Bukhanovsky did not intend to report on them, because first of all he is a doctor, and he should help a person recover and begin to lead a healthy lifestyle.

People with problems of this kind in "Phoenix" are addressed not only from all over Russia, but also from other countries. Children with suspicious pathologies of behavior are brought there by their parents. Bukhanovsky himself traveled in especially difficult cases to the sick at home.

What is forgotten to mention in the newspapers?

Because of the profound success of the professor in the field of criminology, his other activities remained in the background. Bukhanovsky together with his group assisted victims of disasters and terrorist attacks, soldiers who fought in "hot spots". He went to Volgodonsk after the explosion. And in Novoshakhtinsk the group arrived together with the rescuers.

The last years of his life Bukhanovsky devoted to the problems of drug, alcohol, food, gambling and sexual addiction. He was one of the first psychiatrists who actively tackled this problem. Bukhanovsky established that, in fact, different diseases have a single mechanism of origin and development. This theme is devoted to the work "Game dependence: a clinic, pathogenesis, therapy." His editor was Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich.

Books and articles, however, were not the only component of his work. The psychiatrist made a feasible contribution to raising the level of professional training of the staff of the Office of the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia and the Narcological Service of the CBD, and also provided general assistance in the fight against drug addiction.

Family and students

For 40 years of dedicated work Bukhanovsky received an impressive number of titles, letters of thanks, awards and prizes, among which there are international ones, for example, "Profession-Life". The scientist became a member of the World Association of Psychiatrists and other organizations.

Bukhanovsky during his scientific activity introduced a lot of innovations, you can say, he created his own school. He raised, according to various sources, from two to five doctors of science and about a dozen candidates who continued his journey. As one of Bukhanovsky's students notes, they all worked for the idea, and in another way could not be, because they were supervised by a real fan of their business.

The work of the luminary of Russian psychiatry and his daughter Olga, born in a marriage with Inna Bukhanovskaya, continued. She took the post of chief physician in the center of Phoenix. The grandson of Alexander Olimpievich Zhenya also wants to become a psychiatrist.

But the realization of his dream Professor Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich will not see. The psychiatrist died of pulmonary embolism on April 18, 2013, and this tragic event became a black calendar day for everyone who knew this wonderful person.