Martin Aigner, Specialist in Psychiatry, Neurology and Psychotherapeutic Medicine

Primary Associate Professor and Private Lecturer Dr Martin Aigner holds degrees in both Psychiatry and Neurology and Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine. He is Head of the Clinical Division of Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital Tulln of the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences. In keeping with the philosophy of life-long-learning, he is committed to the further development of the discipline and is a Member of the Board, President (2022 to 2025) and Head of the Training Commission of the Austrian Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (Österreichische Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie und Psychosomatik, ÖGPP) as well as a member of the Board of the Austrian Pain Society and the Austrian Balint Society. He is also a lecturer at the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, the Medical University of Vienna and the University for Continuing Education Krems. Dr Aigner is a Principal Investigator in the new PhD programme Mental Health and Neuroscience at Karl Landsteiner University.

Thanks to his specialised training and wealth of professional experience, Dr Aigner brings a broad approach to the fields of psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine: “I am a strong proponent of the body-body-soul concept. As specialists in the field of psychiatry, we cannot work without the living body, because individual and social aspects play a role alongside biological ones. We are already familiar with some reciprocal connections, such as the involvement of the immune system in some cases of depression or states of exhaustion. In many cases, these influences can be measured. This is not always the case, however, and just because we cannot see any physical manifestations (yet), this does not mean they aren’t there. In psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine, we seek to bring together subjective sensations and objectifiable parameters to form a comprehensive whole. Accompanying research provides us with additional knowledge and a more complete picture of various diseases. We are currently planning further research into how changes in the microbiome are linked to psychological symptoms.”

As a medical student, Martin Aigner worked at the University of Vienna’s Institute of Anatomy as a student assistant and continued his work there later on as a university assistant, focussing on the role of proprioception in the outer eye muscles. Prompted by the question “How do voluntary movements occur?” Aigner then turned his attention to motor control circuits and began investigating neuro-anatomical relationships. This research covered a wide range of subjects, from pathological, neuro-functional processes to obsessive-compulsive disorders. In 2006, Aigner was awarded a postdoctoral lecture qualification for his thesis on “Bio-Psycho-Social Contributions to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders and Pain Disorders”. During this period, Dr Aigner received three scientific awards: two from the Austrian Pain Society and one from the Vienna Association for Neurology and Psychiatry. In 2011, he transferred to Tulln University Hospital, then known as Donauregion Tulln Regional Hospital, where he was appointed Head of the Clinical Division of Adult Psychiatry, now the Division of Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine.

Dr Aigner’s studies on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorders have broadened his view of psychotherapy: “I was heavily influenced by behavioural therapy and believed that exposure and response prevention (ERP) plays a pivotal role in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder. One study, in which we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a progression parameter for behavioural therapy for the first time in Austria, showed that the experience of positive, stabilising relationships can induce a turning point, which can then be stabilised by ERP. This was a formative insight”, recalls Professor Aigner. Tulln University Hospital takes a dispersed “sector psychiatry” approach to service provision and offers a multifaceted range of services for a specific region of Lower Austria. Aigner was involved in developing the guidelines of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) for the pharmacological treatment of eating disorders. In 2014, thanks to Dr Aigner’s expertise in the connections between psychopharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, ketamine was made available as a treatment option for treatment-resistant depression at Tulln University Hospital. 

Like many others, the Division of Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine faced considerable challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Since Covid-19, we have been intensifying our efforts in digital health literacy. The expansion of these services has already progressed a little further in Germany; comparable services will follow in Austria. It is important to remember that these digital offerings will never be enough on their own without a therapist”, says Dr Aigner. He also co-authored the guidelines for treating post-viral conditions. 

‘‘We are currently focusing on expanding services for adolescents and young adults”, says Professor Aigner. ‘‘At present, around 15% of our acute outpatients are between the ages of 18 and 25. This age group represents a quarter of our day clinic patients and a third of our inpatients. This is why we are placing particular emphasis on transitional psychiatry and putting sustainable structures in place.” Transitional refers to the stage at which children become adults. “Transitional psychiatry requires the involvement of educational science. The Research Centre Transitional Psychiatry allows us to address the scientific dimension. We want to get young people out of acute psychiatric care and back into their familiar surroundings as quickly as possible. We provide stable learning experiences in an inpatient setting in order to avoid what is known as the reinforcement trap. We want to avoid instilling a sense of learned helplessness and instead bolster our patients’ resilience. Recovery counsellors help patients take an active role in their own recovery, for example, thus promoting self-efficacy. As with other projects, the recovery counsellors’ work will also be accompanied by team of scientists. The team, which includes two to three senior physicians with postdoctoral qualifications, not only has plenty of expertise, but also lots of new ideas for projects and actions”, says Professor Aigner. 

According to Professor Aigner, Head of Division, the latest challenges facing psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine are the result of socio-political shifts and developments: “We are following with keen interest the recent debate on the legalisation of cannabis in Germany, as we regularly admit cannabis users suffering from psychosis. In the next few years, the introduction of the new ICD-11 will bring about changes in diagnostics. The ICD is the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization”. Dr Aigner has long been aware of just how closely psychiatry is interconnected with other disciplines: “Towards the end of my specialist training, I briefly worked in a gastroenterology department and found a surprising number of psychiatric disorders there. Accompanying therapy and preventive psychotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic treatment can have a positive impact on recovery and quality of life.” The complexity of psychiatry and its close links with other disciplines will become apparent in a forthcoming project with the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Tulln, where food ingredients will be analysed and their influence on psychotic exacerbations studied.

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