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In a footnote, added nine years later to his ‘History of the Psychoanalytic Movement’, Freud (1914, 134) records the lamentable fact that “at the present time the Scandinavian countries are still the least receptive” in welcoming psychoanalysis to their shores. Behind this laconic statement lies a multitude of factors which have, generally, tended to retard the evolution of scientific and cultural life in these northern reaches of Europe.
Not only was it purely a matter of geographical isolation from the mainstream of European traditions and way of life but also the socio-economic processes of industrialization and urbanization were late in making any noticeable impression on the fabric of Scandinavian society. For instance, in Sweden, up until 1910, the majority of the population was still employed on the land1) (Samuelsson, 1968, 186). Her neighbouring countries witnessed an equally delayed development, if not even more so. The North was far too sparsely populated to allow the much needed specialization