State Mental Health Services—Danish Hospitals and the Directorate, 1922–1952

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the psychiatric hospital system in Denmark. It follows the introduction of the Directorate for the State Mental Hospitals in the early twentieth century and the process of change that subsequently was initiated. This directorate within the Ministry of the Interior gained control of the various state mental hospitals. General regulations for all the hospitals were enacted, and a process of harmonisation of state psychiatry was consequently started in the 1920s. As a result, the mental hospitals developed closer ties with each other. On the therapeutic side, the hospitals shared information about new psychiatric therapies and coordinated treatment options for their patients. This process of harmonisation played an important role for the later reception of lobotomy.