Olav Kristian Brodwall 1914-2002

Olav Kristian Brodwall passed quietly away on 23 November 2002. He was born in 1914 as the oldest of six siblings, and grew up in the community of Laerdal on the west coast of Norway. Early in his life, he knew that he would want to work for and with people. At the age of fourteen, he moved to Oslo and became a pupil at the “Katedralskolen”, a prestigious school maintained by the state. Here, he took his A-levels before he began medical studies in order to become a psychiatrist. In the course of his studies, he became absorbed with psychoanalysis which, at that time, was a totally new discipline in Norway. He spent the war years in England, and when peace came, he became an army psychiatrist for a while before being approved as a specialist in psychiatry. His clinical work made him realize that no illness could be worse than mental suffering.

He gained extensive experience from his work in psychiatric institutions in England, Sweden and Norway. In 1960, he qualified as a psychoanalyst and soon became a training analyst in the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society. Accordingly, his work as an analyst, supervisor and seminar leader was to extend over many years. Professor Harald Schjelderup was probably the psychoanalytic teacher who had the greatest impact on Olav Brodwall's theoretical and clinical training. In his turn, he became an influential teacher in the field and a model to his candidates.

His early roots in the Laerdal community seem to have left their marks on his personality and his ways. There was a subtle liveliness about him. His interest and involvement in people and their destinies had a rare authenticity. Another concern of his was the tensions existing between the individual and society where conditions for freedom of thought and independence were crucial premises. A key point was psychoanalysis as a freedom-generating ideology of treatment.

Olav Brodwall's wide-ranging knowledge of psychoanalytic theory and rationale of therapy always became an enriching e