Abstract
The Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine was founded in 1959, with Yujiro Ikemi as its central figure. The first 20 years were a time of painstaking preparatory work. The next 20 years were spent in figurative road-building, and that time is the focus of this account. The Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine was able to join the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences in 1979. The field represented by the Society was officially approved as a specialty in 1996, and the Society achieved the legal status of an incorporated association in 1997. Thus the Society came to be established in academic terms, in clinical terms, and in legal terms, and it has continued to develop on that foundation up to the present. The development of psychosomatic medicine at the University of Tokyo is described with a focus on the first period of growth and on the period of establishment of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine when a course on the subject was approved. The members of the board of the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Medicine at the time that organization was founded included nine professors from the University of Tokyo. Moreover, it was Professor Sadataka Tasaka of the University of Tokyo who organized the second general assembly of the Society. However, the work of building the department's foundation was actually done by the mid-level and younger faculty members who founded the University of Tokyo Psychosomatic Medicine Discussion Group in 1963, including Hitoshi Ishikawa, Tatsushi Ishizaki, and Hiroyuki Suematsu as representative members. Then the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine was established as a clinical department in the University of Tokyo Branch Hospital in 1972, due in large part to the efforts of Dr. Ishikawa. The department moved along a thorny path to start. It obtained its own location for outpatient treatment, and made advances in clinical practice and clinical research. Under the second professor (this writer) to head the department, research and clinical practice were conducted on eating disorders, and an educational structure was established that included clinical training. This was elevated to the status of an authorized medical course in 1993. During the time of the third professor, Tomifusa Kuboki, the department was then integrated into the main hospital and acquired its own ward. The fourth, Professor Akira Akabayashi, has been engaging in the development of new research programs.
