Frihetens milda disciplin : normalisering och social styrning i svensk sinnessjukvård 1850-1970

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the institutionalized Swedish Psychiatric practice during the period 1850 and 1970 - the era of the large mental hospitals - in terms of a modem disciplinary project. Point of departure relates to the meeting between the admitted patient and the educational work of the mental hospital and its everyday practice. The main sources of information for this study consists among other things of case sheets and texts closely related to the work of the mental hospitals. The study has two important aspects. The first deals with the normalized procedures in the practice of mental care, and draws the attention to the relation between social and cultural standards and the way the mental hospitals reviews, treats and handles the patient. The second aspect deals with the actual administration and the techniques of the hospital to correct the patient and his/her actions in a desirable direction. An overarching discussion deals with the relation between liberating and Controlling practitioners, and how the Controlling power of the hospital relates to the modem society's conception of a independent man. At the same time as the physical coercion of the mental hospital diminished, controlling methods were required which were not merely based on obedience and Submission, but also on the participation and will of the patient. Informal system of rewards, confession-techniques as well as various forms of a conditionalised and regulated freedom is combined with a more concealed potential of coercion of the institution. The compulsory work is being analysed as the most important educational therapy - both socially and ethically. Work is being described as a liberal Controlling technique. By connecting work to the system of rewards as well as increased physical freedom enables the hospital to exercise control and predictability without resorting to coercion. How the hospital looked upon and handled the sexual body, and how cultural conceptions regarding sexual normality dominated the practical care-taking is being analysed with the starting point in case sheets. The sexual behaviour, especially concerning women, resulted in a meeting of different opinions between restraining and testing practitioners where moral reliability was a condition for physical freedom. The thesis describes a movement over time towards increased physical freedoms for the patients of the mental hospitals. This did not imply that the control or the normalization decreased in intensity. But rather that the forms and the conditions for these processes changed. The freedom that was placed in sight was always connected with the well behaviour of the patient.digitalisering@um

The Meaning of Normality : The controversy about the mental health campaign in Sweden 1969

At the height of the Swedish welfare society, a campaign with the aim of promoting mental health issues within the Swedish labour market was launched. The title and purpose of the campaign, 'Mental health - an action of increased understanding and solidarity at work', was to illuminate mental health issues at work. Surprisingly to the organizers, the mental health campaign stirred up major opposition, especially from the political left. The idea of mental hygiene in an industrial and workplace setting, a cross-breed between the values of the Human Relations School and psychiatric science, was received with deep mistrust. The campaign caused an agitated debate in the media about power relations between employers and employees. The political disagreements were exposed in a number of articles in the daily newspapers and in the evening papers during the summer of that year. This article undertakes an investigation of the campaign literature and the media debate. The interpretation of the debate highlights different opinions about the meaning of normal mental health. Four different views of normality and mental health which demonstrate the complexity of the issue are presented. Mental health could mean adjustment and harmony, it could be a medical weapon to suppress the working class, it could even mean a neutral state of absence of mental problems, or lastly it could be a claim for the right to live a normal life