Heritage & Contributors
Honoring the roots of Iranian psychiatry and those who advanced mental health
“The Psychiatrist of the World”
Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn-Sīnā [Avicenna] (ca. 970–1037) was the preeminent philosopher and physician of the Islamic world. In his work he combined the disparate strands of philosophical and scientific thinking in Greek late antiquity and early Islam into a rationally rigorous and self-consistent scientific system.
In Latin translation, beginning with the 12th century, Avicenna’s philosophy influenced medieval and Renaissance scholars, just as the Latin translation of his medical Canon formed the basis of medical instruction in European universities until the 17th century. In the Islamic world he is called “The Preeminent Master” (al-shaykh al-raʾīs).
Adapted from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy materials featured on sipna.net.
Dr. Iradj Siassi
This statue of Dr. Iradj Siassi was presented to him for his psychiatric contributions and the dedication he showed for modernization and advancement of mental health in Iran, during an inauguration at the University of Tehran.
Dr. Siassi was involved in research activities and advancing psychiatric residency programs of medical students during the 1970s when he was active as a Deputy of the Minister of Health at the Ministry of Health and Rehabilitation in Iran. He founded SIPNA in 1982.
نکوداشت دکتر ایرج سیاسی
Dr. Mahmoud Behfar (1933–2022)
Mahmoud Behfar was born in Tehran, Iran on April 18, 1933. On June 7, 2022, he passed away at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California, surrounded by his family.
He received his MD from the University of Tehran in 1956, later trained in psychiatry in London (Diploma of Psychological Medicine, 1973; MRCPsych, 1974), established the first Suicide Prevention Center in the Middle East, served as Professor of Psychiatry in Iran, and authored the first Persian-language book on psychopharmacology.
After moving to the United States in 1986, he worked at the VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, training students and residents until retirement in 2010. His last act of kindness was donating his body to UCI Medical Center for the benefit of the next generation of physicians.