ABSTRACT
By the early 20th century, a publicly supported family-care system had become the most common form of mental health care in Norway. This household-based care was provided by private individuals, usually farming families, who received compensation from the state for having the mentally ill live in their homes. It was a small-scale, decentralised system that was an informal care system, deeply rooted in the local community and in a tradition that already went back a long way in Northern Norway. The chapter examines the socioeconomic status of the mentally ill in Northern Norway between 1900 and 1940 and makes use of case records to shed light on whether medical practitioners in Northern Norway took socioeconomic status into account when they diagnosed their mental patients. The chapter discusses the ramifications of the fact that the caregivers in this family care system were usually from the same class as the patient they were assigned to look after.
