A history of Norwegian psychiatry.

The article reports on the history of Norwegian psychiatry. Until the end of World War II, psychiatry in Norway was mainly influenced by the German tradition. The first institution built especially for the mentally ill in Norway was the Oslo Hospital's "dollhus" which opened in 1778. The history of psychiatry before 1850 is mainly the history of the poor. In 1935 the Norwegian Labour Party formed a government with a social reform programme. After World War II, Norway gradually changed from an agrarian and fishing nation to an urban industrial state. After World War II Norwegian psychiatry was basically a hospital psychiatry, strong influenced by German psychiatry with its emphasis on classification, heredity and somatic treatment.