

Editor word: Issue 2 2024
Our latest issue focused on Uncertainty, an experience we all share regarding the future, though we manage it in different ways. Death (...)


Highlights from the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry (April - August of 2024)
The Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, formerly “Nordisk Psykiatrisk Tidsskrift”, is an international journal that publishes excellent (...)


A week in psychiatry with Páll Matthíasson
This time, Páll Matthíasson gladly agreed to describe his work week.


The Nordic psychiatric associations: reflecting on our legacy and shaping the future
The Nordic Psychiatric Association (NPA) constitutes a significant body for psychiatric professionals in the Nordic region, playing an (...)


Assisted suicide on psychiatric grounds
Do we, as humans, have the right to decide when to end our own lives? Treating suicidal patients is a crucial responsibility for (...)


When someone wants help to die
Interview with Solveig Klæbo Reitan and Ida Øygard Haavardsholm.


Palliative psychiatry in the Nordic countries?
What should society reasonably expect from mental health care? How can we identify undertreatment and overtreatment? Moreover, can (...)


Self-death as a human possibility
The perils of ‘zero vision of suicide’ from an existential and a non-pathological perspective.


Suicide bereaved children and adolescents postvention and clinical implications
Few more traumatic experiences than losing a parent to suicide exist. In the aftermath, we all need to muster to help the child (...)


Suicide among doctors
Suicide rates among doctors have declined over time but remain higher than those of other academics.


Clinical encounters with death
During medical school and internship, we meet with death in all forms and shapes. Death, as a dying or deceased body, as mourning (...)


Meeting fear of death and the longing for life as a consultation psychiatrist in a cancer hospital
I work as a consultation psychiatrist in a large cancer hospital in Norway. My work varies on a continuum from having conversations (...)


What do persons with severe mental illness die from?
People with mental illness have significantly higher mortality rates compared to the general population. The elevated mortality spans (...)


Death – and the psychiatrist
Death can represent the culmination of a longer – dying - process, often the case in the somatic part of the clinic, but also in (...)


What is important for the family when a patient dies by suicide?
In psychiatric wards, death by suicide is not unusual. I have been involved in the aftermath of several such cases. Based on my (...)


Assisted suicide or euthanasia. Interview with Merete Nordentoft
The Danish Council on Ethics published in 2023 a report about euthanasia. The conclusion was that 16 out of the 17 members found that (...)


Thou shalt not kill. Death penalty and mental illness
The issue of capital punishment has been a subject of considerable controversy both regarding its effectiveness as a deterrent and the (...)


Psychiatric euthanasia in the Third Reich
The fact that there was no new beginning in 1945 was partly due to the lack of a manageable alternative psychiatric approach. This (...)


Different views about death
Death is an inseparable part of human existence. Everyone claims to know that they are mortal although many behave as if life has no end.


How can we reduce the number of suicides? Shift the focus from risk to intervention!
As a psychiatrist, assessing the risk of suicide is a constant part of professional life. Documenting these considerations in the (...)