ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud's thought was anticipated in Sweden in the work of the famous Swedish playwright and novelist August Strindberg. Two independent pioneers, Emanuel af Geijerstam, who worked in Gothenburg between 1898 and 1928, and Poul Bjerre, active in Stockholm and its immediate vicinity during the first five decades of the twentieth century, were united in their ambivalent attitude towards psychoanalysis. In August 1931, a group of clinicians interested in psychoanalysis met to discuss the establishment of a psychoanalytic society in Scandinavia. The Nordic psychoanalysts educated and organized themselves according to the standards of the International Psychoanalytical Association, while Bjerre and others started alternative psychotherapeutic organizations, which were usually antagonistic to psychoanalytic theories of sexuality and dreams. Professor Emeritus Rolf Sandell, a member of the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society and an internationally recognized research methodologist in clinical psychology, is a sought-after consultant for research into psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy.
