Nils Bejerot
Encyclopedia
Nils Bejerot was a Swedish
psychiatrist
and criminologist
best known for his work on drug abuse
and for coining the phrase, Stockholm syndrome
.
, Stockholm
. His father worked as a bank teller at the local Upland Bank office. Not an avid student, he was more interested in scouting
. In 1936 the family moved to Östhammar
after his father was assigned to another bank office. At the age of 15 were Berjerot bleeding in the lungs due to tuberculosis
and was admitted to a sanatorium
in a total of three years. Time in the sanitarium described Bejerot anyway as a happy period in his life. The mood among the patients was good, despite the fact that approximately 1 / 3 part of them died. During his time in sanatorium
s he met people with different experiences and ages, and the discussions they had he later claimed encouraged him to study and become involved in political activity, becoming a member of the Communist Party and other Socialist-affiliated organizations. When he started to study medicine in 1947 his social and political commitments made him a slow student.
On his first vacation he met English nurse Carol Maurice in the 320 km railway between Samac
and Sarajevo
in then-Yugoslavia
, and they later married.
In 1952-54, Bejerot served as assistant at the Karolinska Institute hygienic institution after finishing basic medical education at Karolinska Institute. In the same period he wrote his book against the violence in comic books.
In 1954 while Bejerot is serving as deputy social medical officer at the Child and Youth Welfare Board of the City of Stockholm, Bejerot became, by coincidence, the first to diagnose and report a case of juvenile intravenous drug abuse by any public authority in Europe.
In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev
's secret speech at the 20th Party Congress led Bejerot to question the whole communist system; the illusion of the glorious future of communism was definitely shattered when the Soviet Union
invaded Hungary
, causing Bejerot to quit all activities in politics and focus on the study of medicine.
In 1957 Bejerot received a medical degree from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
From 1957 to 1962, Bejerot was trained in psychiatry at the Södersjukhuset
and the Saint Göran Hospital
in Stockholm.
From 1958 onwards, Bejerot worked as consulting psychiatrist to the Stockholm Police Department, and from 1965 as consulting physician to the Stockholm Remand Prison. His patients in that work was people put in custody by the police, many of them alcoholics or drug addicts from Stockholm City. Later he became Research Fellow in drug dependence at the Swedish National Medical Research Council, and then a reader in Social Medicine at the Karolinska Institute.
In 1963, Bejerot studied epidemiology and medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
, on a grant from the World Health Organization.
In 1965 Bejerot started to engage in the Swedish debate on drug abuse, encouraging tough action against the new and rapidly growing problem. He followed closely a rather clumsy experiment with legal prescription of heroin, amphetamine, etc. to drug addicts, studies that formed the basis for his thesis on the epidemic drug spread. Bejerot claimed that the program should increase the number of drug addicts and showed through counting of injection marks that the number of drug addicts in Stockholm continued to grow fast during the experiment. The program was stopped in 1968.
The concept epidemic drug use was probably inspired by the contemporary debate in Britain. A large government study in the UK, the second Brain Report (1965), described drug addiction as a "socially infectious condition". The second Brain report recommended the establishment of special treatment centers where heroin addicts could be isolated from the community and treated. Bejerot had studied epidemiology in London in 1963. From 1968 and onward was the difference between the epidemic
type, the therapeutic type and the endemic type
of drug abuse a repeated issue in Bejerot's writing and lectures.
In 1969 Bejerot became one of the founders of the Association for a Drug-Free Society (RNS), which played - and still play - an important role in shaping Swedish drug policies. RNS don't accept any of the state grants which are available. Bejerot warned of the consequences of an ‘epidemic addiction’, prompted by young, psychologically and socially unstable persons who, usually after direct personal initiation from another drug abuser, begin to use socially nonaccepted, intoxicating drugs to gain euphoria.
In 1972 Bejerots' reports were used as one of the reasons for increasing the maximum penalty for grave drug offences in Sweden to 10 years in prison.
In 1974 he was called to testify as one of 21 scientific experts on marijuana for a subcommittee of the United States Senate
on the marijuana-hashish epidemic and its impact on United States security.
In 1975 became Bejerot associate professor on a doctoral thesis about drug abuse and drug policy at the Karolinska Institute.
In 1979 Bejerot received an honorary title of professor, an honor that the Swedish government usually awards to only a few people a year.
His research covered such wide areas as the epidemiology of drug abuse, the dynamics of drug dependence and the anomalies of public welfare policy. Bejerot gave an extensive number of lectures in many parts of Sweden. For 30 years he lobbied intensively for zero tolerance
, including possession and use of cannabis. He published about 600 papers and debate articles in different media, and published more than 10 books about the subject. In total he had about 100,000 participants of his 2-day courses. For many years he held lectures at ‘’Polishögskolan’’ (The Swedish Police College) about drug abuse, mental problems and negotiation skills. He was teacher for almost every Swedish police officer, which gave him the epithet ‘’polisdoktorn ‘’ (The police doctor).
Bejerots theories about spread of drug abuse and proposals for an anti-drug policy have still a significant influence on the drug policy of Sweden
.
Bejerot did not accept unemployment and poor private economy as explanations for increased use of illegal drugs. He pointed out, that alcohol abuse in the 1930s was comparatively limited in Sweden, despite high unemployment and economic depression.
Nils Bejerot stressed five main factors that cause increased risk of an individual of becoming a drug abuser:
Bejerot advanced the hypothesis that when addiction supervenes it is no longer a symptom but a morbid condition of its own. In the abuse stage one can willfully control their consumption and intoxicating themselves at will, but eventually - depending the product's addictive qualities, the dosage, the intensity of the abuse, individual factors etc. - the drug abuse can turn into drug dependency, the drug use receive the strength of an instinct. Then its development will not be affected by removal of the initiating factors, the drug dependency has the strength and character of a natural drive, even though it is artificially-induced.
He compared addiction with a very deep love, writing that addiction is "an emotional fixation (sentiment) acquired through learning, which intermittently or continually expresses itself in purposeful, stereotyped behavior with the character and force of a natural drive, aiming at a specific pleasure or the avoidance of a specific discomfort."
This would however not mean that drug addiction was impossible to treat. The abuse was learned, hence it is also possible to relearn, how to live without drugs, and treatment of drug addicts should have a drug-free goal, differing with others who aimed at reduction of adverse effects, also known as harm reduction
. Bejerot thus criticized programs of long methadone treatment of opiate users in programs that were not aimed at drug freedom.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
psychiatrist
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
and criminologist
Criminology
Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...
best known for his work on drug abuse
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
and for coining the phrase, Stockholm syndrome
Stockholm syndrome
In psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them...
.
Work
He was born 1921 in NorrtäljeNorrtälje
Norrtälje is a locality and the seat of Norrtälje Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 17,275 inhabitants in 2010.- History :Norrtälje traces its history to 1219, when the location was first mentioned as Tälje. After some time, the name officially became Norrtälje, to separate it from the...
, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. His father worked as a bank teller at the local Upland Bank office. Not an avid student, he was more interested in scouting
Scouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....
. In 1936 the family moved to Östhammar
Östhammar
Östhammar is a locality and the seat of Östhammar Municipality, Uppsala County, Sweden with 4,534 inhabitants in 2010. Today Östhammar Municipality is a part of Uppsala County, but the area has historically been a part of Stockholm County.-History:...
after his father was assigned to another bank office. At the age of 15 were Berjerot bleeding in the lungs due to tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
and was admitted to a sanatorium
Sanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
in a total of three years. Time in the sanitarium described Bejerot anyway as a happy period in his life. The mood among the patients was good, despite the fact that approximately 1 / 3 part of them died. During his time in sanatorium
Sanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
s he met people with different experiences and ages, and the discussions they had he later claimed encouraged him to study and become involved in political activity, becoming a member of the Communist Party and other Socialist-affiliated organizations. When he started to study medicine in 1947 his social and political commitments made him a slow student.
On his first vacation he met English nurse Carol Maurice in the 320 km railway between Samac
Šamac
Šamac also known as Bosanski Šamac , is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, in the northern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located on the right bank of the Sava river...
and Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
in then-Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, and they later married.
In 1952-54, Bejerot served as assistant at the Karolinska Institute hygienic institution after finishing basic medical education at Karolinska Institute. In the same period he wrote his book against the violence in comic books.
In 1954 while Bejerot is serving as deputy social medical officer at the Child and Youth Welfare Board of the City of Stockholm, Bejerot became, by coincidence, the first to diagnose and report a case of juvenile intravenous drug abuse by any public authority in Europe.
In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's secret speech at the 20th Party Congress led Bejerot to question the whole communist system; the illusion of the glorious future of communism was definitely shattered when the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
invaded Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, causing Bejerot to quit all activities in politics and focus on the study of medicine.
In 1957 Bejerot received a medical degree from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
From 1957 to 1962, Bejerot was trained in psychiatry at the Södersjukhuset
Södersjukhuset
Södersjukhuset is one of the largest hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden. Constructed between 1937 and 1944, it was designed by architects Hjalmar Cederström and H. Imhäuser. Södersjukhuset has the largest emergency department in northern Europe....
and the Saint Göran Hospital
Saint Göran Hospital
Saint Göran Hospital is a hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. It is located at Kungsholmen in central Stockholm....
in Stockholm.
From 1958 onwards, Bejerot worked as consulting psychiatrist to the Stockholm Police Department, and from 1965 as consulting physician to the Stockholm Remand Prison. His patients in that work was people put in custody by the police, many of them alcoholics or drug addicts from Stockholm City. Later he became Research Fellow in drug dependence at the Swedish National Medical Research Council, and then a reader in Social Medicine at the Karolinska Institute.
In 1963, Bejerot studied epidemiology and medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a constituent college of the federal University of London, specialising in public health and tropical medicine...
, on a grant from the World Health Organization.
In 1965 Bejerot started to engage in the Swedish debate on drug abuse, encouraging tough action against the new and rapidly growing problem. He followed closely a rather clumsy experiment with legal prescription of heroin, amphetamine, etc. to drug addicts, studies that formed the basis for his thesis on the epidemic drug spread. Bejerot claimed that the program should increase the number of drug addicts and showed through counting of injection marks that the number of drug addicts in Stockholm continued to grow fast during the experiment. The program was stopped in 1968.
The concept epidemic drug use was probably inspired by the contemporary debate in Britain. A large government study in the UK, the second Brain Report (1965), described drug addiction as a "socially infectious condition". The second Brain report recommended the establishment of special treatment centers where heroin addicts could be isolated from the community and treated. Bejerot had studied epidemiology in London in 1963. From 1968 and onward was the difference between the epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
type, the therapeutic type and the endemic type
Endemic (epidemiology)
In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic in the UK, but malaria is not...
of drug abuse a repeated issue in Bejerot's writing and lectures.
In 1969 Bejerot became one of the founders of the Association for a Drug-Free Society (RNS), which played - and still play - an important role in shaping Swedish drug policies. RNS don't accept any of the state grants which are available. Bejerot warned of the consequences of an ‘epidemic addiction’, prompted by young, psychologically and socially unstable persons who, usually after direct personal initiation from another drug abuser, begin to use socially nonaccepted, intoxicating drugs to gain euphoria.
In 1972 Bejerots' reports were used as one of the reasons for increasing the maximum penalty for grave drug offences in Sweden to 10 years in prison.
In 1974 he was called to testify as one of 21 scientific experts on marijuana for a subcommittee of the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
on the marijuana-hashish epidemic and its impact on United States security.
In 1975 became Bejerot associate professor on a doctoral thesis about drug abuse and drug policy at the Karolinska Institute.
In 1979 Bejerot received an honorary title of professor, an honor that the Swedish government usually awards to only a few people a year.
His research covered such wide areas as the epidemiology of drug abuse, the dynamics of drug dependence and the anomalies of public welfare policy. Bejerot gave an extensive number of lectures in many parts of Sweden. For 30 years he lobbied intensively for zero tolerance
Zero tolerance
Zero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...
, including possession and use of cannabis. He published about 600 papers and debate articles in different media, and published more than 10 books about the subject. In total he had about 100,000 participants of his 2-day courses. For many years he held lectures at ‘’Polishögskolan’’ (The Swedish Police College) about drug abuse, mental problems and negotiation skills. He was teacher for almost every Swedish police officer, which gave him the epithet ‘’polisdoktorn ‘’ (The police doctor).
Bejerots theories about spread of drug abuse and proposals for an anti-drug policy have still a significant influence on the drug policy of Sweden
Drug policy of Sweden
The Drug policy of Sweden is one of zero tolerance, including cannabis, focusing on prevention, treatment, and control, aiming to reduce both the supply of and demand for illegal drugs. Enforcement is in the form of widespread drug testing, and penalties ranging from rehabilitation treatment and...
.
Career highlights
He is best known for several things:- His role as a psychiatric adviser during the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robberyNorrmalmstorg robberyThe Norrmalmstorg robbery was a bank robbery and hostage crisis best known as the origin of the term Stockholm syndrome. It occurred at the Norrmalmstorg square in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973...
, and his coinage of the term Stockholm SyndromeStockholm syndromeIn psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them...
to refer to the way in which the hostages become grateful to the hostage-takers . The term 'Stockholm Syndrome' has been used on millions of Internet pages.
- His strong opposition to legalization or prescription programs for narcoticNarcoticThe term narcotic originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with any sleep-inducing properties. In the United States of America it has since become associated with opioids, commonly morphine and heroin and their derivatives, such as hydrocodone. The term is, today, imprecisely...
drugsIllegal drug tradeThe illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of those substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.A UN report said the...
. He advocated zero toleranceZero toleranceZero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...
for illegal use and possession of drugs, including all drugs not covered by prescription, something that today is law in SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. In the early 1980s, he became one of the "Top 10 opinion molders" in Sweden for this. Bejerot is by UNODC and many others recognized as founder of the Swedish strategy against recreational use of drugs. His demand for zero toleranceZero toleranceZero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...
as a drug policyDrug policyA drug policy most often refers to a government's attempt to combat the negative effects of drug addiction and misuse in its society. Governments try to combat drug addiction with policies which address both the demand and supply of drugs, as well as policies which can mitigate the harms of drug...
was for a long time seen as extreme, but during the late 1970s opinion changed. He is without doubt the person most responsible for changing the Swedish drug policy in a restrictive direction something that made him a controversial person, both before and after his death. Many people considered Bejerot as a good humanistHumanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
advocating a viable policy against narcotics and Robert DuPontRobert DuPontRobert L. DuPont, M.D. is a national leader in drug abuse prevention, policy and treatment. He was the first Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse from 1973 to 1978 and was the second White House Drug Czar from 1973 to 1977 under former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. In 1978...
considers him "the hero of the Swedish drug abuse story." Others view this as a reactionaryReactionaryThe term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
hindering of new treatment practices against drug abuse.
- His strong opposition against violenceViolenceViolence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
in comic bookComic bookA comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, which was the subject of his 1954 book Barn, serie, samhälle (Children, Comics, Society), itself largely an adaptation of Fredric WerthamFredric WerthamFredric Wertham was a Jewish German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of violent imagery in mass media and comic books on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent , which purported that comic books are...
's book Seduction of the InnocentSeduction of the InnocentSeduction of the Innocent is a book by German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was a minor bestseller that created alarm in parents and galvanized...
, also published in 1954.
Bejerot on factors that increase the risk of abuse
Before Bejerot began to participate in the debate on drugs in 1965, it was the dominant view in Sweden that drug abuse was a private health problem and that law enforcement measures should be aimed at drug dealers. Before 1968, the maximum offence for a grave drug crime was one year in prison. Bejerot objected to this and stressed the importance of measures against the demand for drugs, against users, and their importance in the spread of addiction to new addicts.Bejerot did not accept unemployment and poor private economy as explanations for increased use of illegal drugs. He pointed out, that alcohol abuse in the 1930s was comparatively limited in Sweden, despite high unemployment and economic depression.
Nils Bejerot stressed five main factors that cause increased risk of an individual of becoming a drug abuser:
- Availability of the addictive substance
- Money to acquire the substance
- Time to use the substance
- Example of use of the substance in the immediate environment
- A permissive ideology in relation to the use of the substance.
Bejerot advanced the hypothesis that when addiction supervenes it is no longer a symptom but a morbid condition of its own. In the abuse stage one can willfully control their consumption and intoxicating themselves at will, but eventually - depending the product's addictive qualities, the dosage, the intensity of the abuse, individual factors etc. - the drug abuse can turn into drug dependency, the drug use receive the strength of an instinct. Then its development will not be affected by removal of the initiating factors, the drug dependency has the strength and character of a natural drive, even though it is artificially-induced.
He compared addiction with a very deep love, writing that addiction is "an emotional fixation (sentiment) acquired through learning, which intermittently or continually expresses itself in purposeful, stereotyped behavior with the character and force of a natural drive, aiming at a specific pleasure or the avoidance of a specific discomfort."
This would however not mean that drug addiction was impossible to treat. The abuse was learned, hence it is also possible to relearn, how to live without drugs, and treatment of drug addicts should have a drug-free goal, differing with others who aimed at reduction of adverse effects, also known as harm reduction
Harm reduction
Harm reduction refers to a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with recreational drug use and other high risk activities...
. Bejerot thus criticized programs of long methadone treatment of opiate users in programs that were not aimed at drug freedom.
See also
- Alfred R. LindesmithAlfred R. LindesmithAlfred Ray Lindesmith was an Indiana University professor of sociology. He was among the early scholars providing a rigorous and thoughtful account of the nature of addiction....
- Drug policy of SwedenDrug policy of SwedenThe Drug policy of Sweden is one of zero tolerance, including cannabis, focusing on prevention, treatment, and control, aiming to reduce both the supply of and demand for illegal drugs. Enforcement is in the form of widespread drug testing, and penalties ranging from rehabilitation treatment and...
- Stockholm syndromeStockholm syndromeIn psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them...
- War on drugsWar on DrugsThe War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
- Zero toleranceZero toleranceZero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...
External links
- http://www.nilsbejerot.se/om.htm - official webpage, including full text of many of his books