A talented psychiatrist and an outstanding specialist in serial killers Alexander Bukhanovsky became a real pride of Russian science. His name is usually associated with the high-profile case of Andrei Chikatilo. After all, the exposure of the most terrible maniac of our time is a direct merit of the Rostov scientist. However, Bukhanovsky is not only known for participating in his capture. The psychiatrist created his own school, made many discoveries, and raised 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 was born on February 22, 1944, in the city of Grozny. He was the son of an American businessman Joseph Strassberg and a dentist Evelina Sargsyants. The surname and unusual middle name was given to the psychiatrist by his mother’s second husband, engineer Olympius Maximovich Bukhanovsky.
The life path of a scientist, as he himself repeatedly noted in an interview, was largely determined by his family. Mother’s example and grandmother’s stories about his grandfather Aram Sargsyants, one of the founders of the healthcare system in Chechnya, aroused Bukhanovsky’s passion for medicine, which he carried through his whole life.
After seven grades of the school, he entered the Chechen-Ingush medical school. Bukhanovsky graduated with honors. A craving for knowledge led the future psychiatrist to his second homeland.
Choosing a Life Path
After working for a year as a paramedic, Bukhanovsky continued his studies in Rostov-on-Don. This city subsequently became the main field of its activity. Later 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 his first year at the Rostov Medical Institute, Bukhanovsky began to show interest in psychiatry, giving way to a passionate love for this subject.
He graduated with honors, and in 1970, after two years as a doctor in Severomorsk, he returned and finally connected his fate with the department of psychiatry. Bukhanovsky worked in residency, entered graduate school, and soon began to teach. And in 1996, he was appointed 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 that Alexander Olympianovich Bukhanovsky launched at the institute. The biography of a psychiatrist is a storehouse of achievements. With his participation, the "Department of Psychiatry with a course of medical psychology and psychotherapy FPK" was created. Bukhanovsky himself formed the teaching staff. It included many of his students, who had by that time achieved significant professional success. The department held many international forums, in particular on serial killings. On them Bukhanovsky was the president.
The “Department of Psychiatry and Narcology of the FPK and PPS”, founded by him in 2005, also enjoyed authority. Like the two previous ones, over time, it became the head department of postgraduate education in the Southern Federal District. Later, Bukhanovsky handed them over to his students.
Of particular note is his bibliography of books. Bukhanovsky A. O. wrote six monographs, ten study guides, among which - "General Psychopathology." The book has survived several editions and is still respected among its colleagues. The psychiatrist co-authored a two-volume guide for doctors in 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 genetics of schizophrenia
As some of his students note, freedom has always been the main value for a scientist, which is probably why he tackled very controversial and even taboo topics. In 1969, Bukhanovsky was seriously carried away by the genetics of schizophrenia. At that time, there was almost no literature on this phenomenon, and he did not have wide access to foreign publications. And the very topic of power is not something that was forbidden, but not approved. However, Bukhanovsky managed to find several works by geneticists of the Stalin era. On their basis, the psychiatrist wrote and defended in 1978 an outstanding candidate dissertation, 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 activities of A.O. Bukhanovsky
In the late 70s, he began to actively study the problem of transsexualism. In the USSR, this topic belonged to the category of banned, and for the sex-change operation, criminal liability was provided. Bukhanovsky was even called to the party committee, where they openly made it clear that a true communist should not be engaged 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 for the most part other perversions are hidden behind transsexualism, and gender reassignment in many cases is an unnecessary operation. Having accumulated huge material by the standards of those times, in 1994 he defended a doctorate on this topic. And this is not the only work that A. Bukhanovsky created within the framework of this problem. The books “Structural and Dynamic Hierarchy of Human Sex” and “Transsexualism in Russia” also became the property of the scientific community.
Loud success: the case of A.R. Chikatilo
However, the scientist's success in the field of criminal psychiatry associated with the Rostov maniac Andrei Chikatilo brought real fame to the scientist. For Bukhanovsky himself, participation in his searches was unexpected. Desperate to find the killer, Captain Viktor Burakov came to ask for help from a psychiatrist. At first, Bukhanovsky did not agree, because such problems were not part of his circle of interests. But when Burakov showed him pictures of mutilated torn children, the psychiatrist decided to seriously take up the business of a maniac, because his daughter Olga was then 15 years old, and she was also in danger.
Based on the investigative data, Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich made a psychological portrait of the criminal. He worked on it all night, went to the crime scene with the investigation team. The prospective portrait of the killer amounted to 70 pages of text and coincided 85% with the real identity of Chikatilo.
In 1990, the maniac was caught, but evidence of his involvement in numerous killings was not enough. Chikatilo himself was silent and did not make contact with the investigating authorities. Bukhanovsky was involved in interrogation. In a conversation with a 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 killer opened up. Chikatilo wept like a child, cursing everyone around him, and confessed to all the crimes he had committed.
Breakthrough in criminal psychiatry
Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich made an invaluable contribution to the study of the phenomenon of serial killers and to the formation of the law enforcement bodies of Russia, which before his lectures on criminal psychiatry did not realize what they were dealing with. The authority of the scientist has become unlimited. The psychiatrist even conducted his lectures in the USA at the FBI Academy, where he was later awarded the Interpol Award. Bukhanovsky also worked as a consultant to the Main Department of Criminal Investigation of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Rostov-on-Don became the leader in the detection of crimes committed by sexual maniacs. Bukhanovsky himself unveiled the factors that influence the formation of the personality of a serial killer: organic brain damage, weak sexual constitution, and an unhappy childhood. The psychiatrist said that it is possible to recognize the future maniac even before the first crime committed by him, and this pathology is treatable, which he subsequently dedicated himself to.
LRNTS "Phoenix" - the brainchild of A. O. Bukhanovsky
In 1991, Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich opened the Phoenix scientific and medical rehabilitation center, which became famous not only in Russia but also abroad. There, doctors still provide contracted assistance to people suffering from any mental disorders.
Takes center and people with a predisposition to serial killings. Moreover, they can be treated anonymously. Such rules caused a lot of horror and indignation among the public, because, in fact, potential rapists remain at large, and the investigating authorities do not even suspect their existence. But Bukhanovsky was not going to report them, because he is, first and foremost, a doctor, and should help a person recover and begin to lead a healthy lifestyle.
People of this kind come to Phoenix not only from all over Russia, but also from other countries. Parents bring children with suspicious behavioral pathologies there. Bukhanovsky himself, in especially severe cases, went home to the sick.
What do they forget to mention in the newspapers?
Because of the resounding success of the professor in criminology, his other activities remained in the background. Bukhanovsky, along with his group, provided assistance to victims of catastrophes and terrorist attacks, soldiers who fought in “hot spots”. He went to Volgodonsk after the explosion. And in Novoshakhtinsk the group arrived with rescuers.
Bukhanovsky devoted the last years of his life to the problems of drug, alcohol, food, games and sexual addiction. He was one of the first psychiatrists to actively address this problem. Bukhanovsky established that, in fact, different diseases have a single mechanism of nucleation and development. This topic is devoted to the work "Game addiction: clinic, pathogenesis, therapy." Bukhanovsky Alexander Olimpievich became its editor.
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 for employees of the Directorate of the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia and the Addiction Treatment Service of the CBD, and also provided general assistance in the fight against drug addiction.
