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Psychoanalyst and medical doctor Baron Henrik Carpelan died on 19 February 2000, at the age of 78, of lung cancer. He was born in Helsinki where he also went to school and graduated from the Gymnasium in 1939. He participated in the war as a front-line officer, was severely wounded and decorated for bravery. After the war he studied medicine, specializing in psychiatry and neurology and married his French life-partner Anne. Their children Mikael and Yvonne were born in the early 1950s.
In 1957, Henrik defended his doctoral thesis that was the first academic dissertation in Finland on a definitely psychosomatic theme. Shortly after that, he decided to leave with his family for Geneva in order to undergo psychoanalytic training. They returned to Helsinki in 1963.
Henrik was one of the pioneers in Finnish psychoanalysis. He belonged to those few psychiatrists and psychologists who, in the 1950s and 1960s, moved abroad – often with big families – to receive psychoanalytic training that was not yet available in Finland.
When back in Helsinki, Henrik joined the other returned pioneers to create an IPA-approved group in Finland that would be able to offer psychoanalytic training in their own country. In the birth and development of this organization, Henrik had a major rôle, especially as its first long-standing secretary and later on as its president and member of its teaching staff.
Introduction of psychoanalytic group therapy into Finland was another important area in Henrik's life-work. He was the founder, long-standing president, head of training and honorary member of the Finnish Society of Group Psychotherapy.