Heinz Aeschbach, born in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1946, earned his medical degree at the University of Zürich, Switzerland in 1972 and a federal diploma as piano teacher from the Music Academy in Zürich in 1968. He received his psychiatric training at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston 1972-75 and later received board certification. 

  Private studies since adolescence included philosophy, religions, and cultural anthropology, and focused particularly on animal and human behavior research (primarily Konrad Lorenz, Paul Leyhausen and, of particular importance, Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt; later also the primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Frans de Waal). More recent literature studied summarizes brain research, evolutionary psychology and ethics. He had a special interest in utopian movements, what worked and why they failed. Heinz Aeschbach also pursued his interest in economics, studying works by Paul A. Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert L. Heilbroner, Milton Friedman, and Gunnar Myrdal. More recently he also read books by Hernando De Soto, Amartya Sen, Muhammad Yunus and others.

   For most of his psychiatric work, he has worked with opiate addiction-multiple diagnosis patients, patients with mood disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, borderline personality and dissociative disorders. He consulted with institutions for the mentally retarded, and he has given numerous presentations at substance abuse / addiction conferences. His extensive continuing education includes family therapy, hypnotherapy and teaching self-hypnosis, cognitive-behavioral techniques, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Dr. Aeschbach considers the biology of human behaviors and ethics of great relevance in his work with substance abuse-multiple diagnosis patients.

Heinz Aeschbach, MD is founder and Medical Director of Addiction and Psychotherapy Services in Austin, Texas, see www.austinmethadone.com