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Social History of Medicine Advance Access published online on October 4, 2008
Social History of Medicine, doi:10.1093/shm/hkn058
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved.

Strengthening the Will: Public Clinics for the Nervously Ill in Sweden in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Petteri Pietikainen*

* University of Helsinki, Department of History, PO Box 59, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. E-mail: petteri.pietikainen{at}helsinki.fi


  Abstract

Summary This article examines the development of state-run clinics for the nervously ill in Sweden in the interwar years. After the establishment of the Royal Board of Pensions in 1914, an institution for the care of the chronically neurotic was high on the agenda of this governmental agency. The Swedish state became actively involved in the fight against nervous illnesses, and the primary goal of these state-financed clinics was to turn neurotic patients into productive citizens. Neurotics were seen as a large group of potential invalids who might become a heavy burden on the national economy. They needed to be provided with effective therapy that would strengthen their will and restore their capacity so that they could be swiftly returned to normal life. It was this principle that characterised the clinical work at these institutions. The further development of the care of neuroses was the subject of a long and arduous debate that took place at the Swedish Society of Medicine in 1937. Neurosis was regarded as a national malady (folksjukdom) mainly because medical professionals—neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and internists—formulated it in terms of an extremely contagious diagnosis which, by the 1950s, seemed to affect everyone.

Keywords: history of neurosis; treatment of neurosis; Sweden; social insurance; public clinics; weak will; rehabilitation; Royal Board of Pensions


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