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Den normala människan : Mentalhygieniska diskurser i Sverige

2004

Abstract

The comprehensive aim of the dissertation is to examine how ideas about mental hygiene have been elaborated and debated within the context of Swedish welfare. The dissertation is a compilation of four articles where issues of mental hygiene are examined in detail through an analysis of texts. In addition, a theoretical and methodological framework and a discussion of the concepts of mental health and normality are asserted to the dissertation. The subjects of research are (1) the launching of the movement in USA in the early twentieth, and the autobiographical narrative "A Mind That Found Itself" (Beers 1908), (2) the conception and the evolution of the movement in Sweden, (3) the psychosocial training within the education of social workers between the years 1939 –1989, and (4) the debate about the Mental health Campaign in 1969. The issues of mental hygiene and mental health discussed in the articles are elaborated in relation to the academic disciplines of Sociology of H...