Jump to content

Margit Norell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Polygnotus (talk | contribs) at 12:35, 31 January 2024 (per Repressed memory and Sture Bergwall). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Margit Norell in 1958

Margit Sonja Annie Norell, née Quensel, (23 February 1914 – 28 January 2005) [1] was a Swedish psychoanalyst.

Biography

Margit Norell was born in and grew up in Uppsala and Stockholm, as the daughter of geology professor Percy Quensel and zoologist and journalist Annie Weiss. She was the granddaughter of theology professor Oscar Quensel.[2] She graduated Bachelor and trained as a psychoanalyst. She resigned from the Swedish Psychoanalytical Association in the 1960s, and in 1968 established the Swedish Association for Holistic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.[3]

Norell felt that deep-seated, repressed memories could be brought forward in therapy, and advocated a psychoanalytic treatment for developing them.[4] This approach was popular in the US during the 1980s and formed the basis for expert testimony in several criminal cases in Sweden in the 1990s.[5] This pseudoscientific approach led to the largest miscarriage of justice case in Swedish history.

Norell was a supervisor and therapist for psychologists and therapists who treated and studied Thomas Quick in the Forensic Psychiatric Clinic in Säter. One of these, the psychologist Sven Å. Christianson was an expert witness in the murder trial of Quick.[6] Norell was also the mentor of feminist therapist Hanna Olsson who, on Norell's advice, wrote the book Catrine och rättvisan (Catrine and Justice) which detailed the acclaimed Catrine da Costa murder case. They also collaborated in a 1977 prostitution investigation.[7] Dan Josefsson wrote that a "cult"-like group led by Norell manipulated the police and talked Sture Bergwall into false confessions.

Margit Norell married Curt Norell in 1939, and the couple had three children. She died at the age of 90 in Stockholm.

References

  1. ^ Josefsson, Dan (2013), Mannen som slutade ljuga: berättelsen om Sture Bergwall och kvinnan som skapade Thomas Quick [The man who stopped to lie: the story of Sture Bergwall and the woman who created Thomas Quick], Stockholm: Lind & Co, ISBN 9789174612103
  2. ^ Annie Norell Beach, dotter till Margit Norell [, swedickson.nu, October 2007, archived from the original on 2013-10-29, retrieved 2013-10-24
  3. ^ In 2010, after an intermediate change of name to the Swedish Psychological Society, the association merged with the Swedish Psychological Association
  4. ^ Andersson, Britt; Brattbakk-Bleicher, Tulla; Liljeström, Gillan; Lindholm, Wendy; Ståhle, Birgitta; Turstedt, Kerstin (1999), "Preface (Margit Norell)", Ett rum att leva i. Om djupgående psykoterapeutiska processer och objektrelationsteori [A place to live in. In-depth psychotherapeutic processes and object relations theory], Stockholm: Carlsson publishing, ISBN 9172038489
  5. ^ Håkansson, Johan (23 May 2013), De anhöriga förtjänar en haverikommission [These families deserve a Commission of Enquiry] (PDF), Norrländska Socialdemokraten, retrieved 2013-10-18
  6. ^ Lisinski, Stefan (19 October 2013), Psykoanalytiker styrde nyckelpersonerna i Quick-affären [Psychoanalysts ruled the key figures in the Quick affair], Dagens Nyheter, retrieved 2013-10-21
  7. ^ Josefsson, Dan (2013), Mannen som slutade ljuga: berättelsen om Sture Bergwall och kvinnan som skapade Thomas Quick [The man who stopped to lie: the story of Sture Bergwall and the woman who created Thomas Quick], Stockholm: Lind & Co, pp. 204–206, ISBN 9789174612103

Further reading

  • Josefsson, Dan (2013), Mannen som slutade ljuga: berättelsen om Sture Bergwall och kvinnan som skapade Thomas Quick [The man who stopped lying: the story of Sture Bergwall and the woman who created Thomas Quick], Stockholm: Lind & Co, ISBN 9789174612103