The psychiatry department of ULS Coimbra expressed its sorrow over the passing of Prof. Dr. José Luís Pio Abreu, who significantly contributed to the development and prestige of psychiatry in Portugal. “The psychiatric community is now poorer,” said psychiatrist Horácio Firmino in a Facebook post.
José Luís Pio Abreu was born in Santarém in 1944 and served as a psychiatrist at the University Hospital of Coimbra and an associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra.
Throughout his career, he published several books related to psychiatry, with notable titles released by the publisher Leya. These works include “Quem Nos Faz Como Somos” (2007), “Como Tornar-se Doente Mental” (2009), “Estranho Quotidiano” (2010), “O Bailado Da Alma” (2014), “A Queda dos Machos” (2019), and “Pequena História da Psiquiatria” (2021).
He also served as president of the Portuguese Society of Psychodrama (SPP) and, since 2014, was a member of the Center for the Philosophy of Sciences at the University of Lisbon.
In 2023, Pio Abreu was honored for his medical career as a psychiatrist at the XVII National Congress of Psychiatry.
He completed his first doctorate in 1984 with a thesis related to Biological Psychiatry, followed by a second one in the field of Aggregation in 1996.
During his university years, he took part in the Coimbra student revolt of 1969, known as the Academic Crisis, where students demanded the reintegration of professors and the democratization of higher education in protest against the Estado Novo dictatorship.
