What does it mean for you and your work to become a professor? Does it open new doors or just bring more work?
Yes, I think it might open new doors, but there is probably more work behind them. However, I hope the work will be interesting. Hopefully, it will mean that there will be more focus on mental health from a historical perspective.
For my part, it is also exciting to be employed at SIF and become part of an interdisciplinary environment of researchers working in areas that I also deal with, but from different angles than the historical one. I haven't actually been used to that from previous positions at the University of Copenhagen and Roskilde University. As a minor detail, the title also gives a bit more in salary.
You are trained as a historian from RUC. Why is it important to have a historian at SIF, and what can the past tell us?
It is somewhat of a paradox that psychiatry and mental health are topics that fill an incredible amount in the media today, but very few people know anything about how the historical development has been. Psychiatry is actually a relatively new invention. Before the 1850s, there were virtually no places where people with mental disorders could receive treatment, and the word psychiatry was first coined in 1808.
By following the historical development, we can study changes over time, how diagnoses arise, perhaps to disappear again, how treatment changes, and why psychiatry has taken its current form. History also shows how social and cultural conditions shape our understanding of disease and health. For example, homosexuality was a distinct psychiatric diagnosis that was seen as a subform of psychopathy.
Social changes and a new view on sexuality led to the diagnosis being removed in Denmark in 1980. In this way, history can also be used to reflect on ethical issues.
You are currently working on the project "The History of Child Psychiatry". What are you investigating in the project, and what can it tell us today?
Together with Jennie Sejr Junghans and Marie Reinholdt, who are also employed at SIF, we are working on mapping the foundation and development of child psychiatry in the 20th century. The first child psychiatric department only came into being in 1944 at Rigshospitalet, so it was a late development compared to the rest of psychiatry. Before the 1940s, there were very few treatment options for children. It was also completely different diagnoses that were used for children in this period than those we know today.
This raises questions about what was previously done with children who had mental challenges. How were they handled, and where did they end up when they were not in psychiatry? By studying the historical and societal development, it may also give us some ideas about why there has been and is a large increase in the number of children with psychiatric diagnoses.
Is there a field within your research area that, in your opinion, has not been sufficiently illuminated? And is there a field that you would like to research further?
There are a number of themes about people with various forms of disabilities that have not been illuminated. At the same time, there are really good opportunities in Denmark to investigate this all the way back to the 18th century, as the National Archives and the municipal archives have very large collections of records from this area.On an international level, these collections are actually quite unique. For example, it could be obvious to compare the children from psychiatry with those from the then mental retardation care. The history of psychology is another area that has been written very little about in Denmark. So there will be plenty to tackle if I ever finish the theme of children's mental health from a historical perspective.
