Ayhan Songar

He was the founder of the Department of Psychiatry at Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine and served as its chair for thirty-four years. Ayhan Songar, who was also among the founders of modern psychiatry, served as the president of the Turkish Yeşilay Society. Among his other roles, Songar was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and was also one of the founders of the Aydınlar Ocağı, the Turkish National Culture Foundation, and the Turkish Literature Foundation; he served as President of both the Aydınlar Ocağı and the Turkish National Culture Foundation. Ayhan Songar, who has authored numerous articles on poetry and music, has twenty-six published works to his credit. His lengthy paper titled “Die Menschen und die Psychologie” has been cited as a primary source on numerous occasions in German psychiatric journals. In addition, he served for many years as Director of the Forensic Medicine Institute’s Observation Unit at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Turkey.