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Stig Björk, M.D., died on 18 March 1993 at the age of 82 years. His contribution was essential when the basis was laid for an internationally acknowledged psychoanalytic training in Finland, a training which now, after almost three decades, has resulted in a Psychoanalytic Society within the IPA, with over 140 members.
Stig Björk was born in Viipuri (Viborg) in 1910, passed his matriculation examination in Vaasa in 1928 and received his M.D. degree in Helsinki in 1939. After working at several psychiatric hospitals, and during the war as an army physician for a battalion and a regiment, he started his work at the Lapinlahti Hospital in 1946. During the war, he had been in contact by correspondence with the first psychoanalyst in Finland, Yrjö Kulovesi. He was also influenced by Ben Rubinstein, who at that time was assistant chief physician at Lapinlahti Hospital and later had his psychoanalytic training and career in the USA. In 1948, Stig Björk as a newly graduated specialist in neurology and psychiatry, moved to Sweden to receive his personal psychoanalysis, and psychoanalytic training. This was completed in 1953 and after that, he worked for a couple of years in Stockholm as psychoanalyst.
In the summer of 1955, Stig Björk returned in Helsinki and started his work as a psychoanalyst in private practice, a work which was going to last for a quarter of a century, up to his retirement in 1983. In 1964, he became a training analyst and teacher. For many years, he was active as a member of the board, as President, and as Chairman of the Training