A contribution from Peter Skagius to a new series on the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth site may interest AHP readers. Skagius describes his ongoing research on how child psychology and psychiatry were represented in Swedish media 1968-2008. As Skagius writes,

In this project, we – meaning myself as the main researcher, Professor Karin Zetterqvist Nelson from Linköping University and Professor Anne-Li Lindgren from Stockholm University – have wanted to go beyond the political and scientific literature since we figure that very few Swedes will actually have sought out and read such texts. Instead, we wanted to turn toward media, broadly defined to include newspapers, magazines and the Internet, as it is through such channels that most people get information about children and childhood.

We were therefore curious about what the general Swede, flipping through the pages of their daily morning paper during breakfast, learned about child psychology and psychiatry.

How did the psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists featured in such a paper discuss the mental health of children? What explanatory frameworks and theoretical notions were mobilized? Were diagnoses mentioned and if so, in what way? And how have these discussions shifted over time?

Read the full piece online here.