ABSTRACT
John Björkhem's short monograph Sören Kierkegaard i psykologisk belysning was published in 1942 by Nybloms Förlag. The overall task Björkhem sets for himself is both critical and constructive in nature. In critiquing Helweg, Björkhem argues two central points. First, Helweg makes an elementary mistake in misclassifying Kierkegaard's somatotype, and because of this mistake his diagnosis proves deeply problematic. Second, Björkhem accuses Helweg of over-interpreting the written material with which he is working in order to make his theory appear more plausible. Given his identification of Kierkegaard with the asthenic /leptosomic body type, Björkhem therefore argues in favor of construing Kierkegaard's constitution as schizothymic. For Björkhem, one can find clear reasons in support of this view by simply tracing out Kierkegaard's life. In the first few years of its publication, Sören Kierkegaard i psykologisk belysning received a decent amount of attention in the press and in academic journals.
