[The founder of the first therapeutic community in Norwegian psychiatry]

In 1959, Dr. Herluf Thomstad (1905-2000) started the first therapeutic community in Norway at Ullevål University Hospital. Meetings in the community brought together all patients and staff members. Patient activities included catering and cleaning, but also the important tasks of informing and taking care of new patients. At a later point in time they were also entrusted with chairing the community meetings to which reports were presented from the activities the day before. The staff discarded their uniforms. Nurses led the patients in their daily duties and thus were coworkers in the development of modern milieu therapy. Thomstad supervised nurses and physicians alike: individual therapy should go hand in hand with milieu therapy in order to enhance the benefit to patients. During the first years, Dr. Thomstad met with a great deal of resistance from fellow Norwegian psychiatrists, but he never gave up. In 1971 he received the order of St. Olav, first class. His assistants developed new methods of family psychiatry; many of them became chairs of other departments of psychiatry in Norway.