The dominating paradigm in Western psychiatry is grounded in biomedical thinking, and biological explanations appear to increasingly take the lead. There has been a shift from a psychological approach to the treatment of such experiences to a biomedical framework, with medication and medicine compliance at its core. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia often tell about extraordinary experiences, such as encounters with UFOs and angels. Drawing upon data collected during 8 months of fieldwork in a Norwegian psychiatric rehabilitation clinic, we explore the translation, transformation and transition of such experiences into psychiatric terminology based upon biomedical knowledge and understanding. We approach these issues with extended reference to a particular patient’s experiences, which appeared to represent a fairly typical scenario at this Norwegian and other treatment units. We take a close view into how a patient in a psychiatric rehabilitation unit explains and interprets his extraordinary experiences, how he perceives the manner in which his experiences are confronted by professionals within the psychiatric field of knowledge, and how these phenomena are explained and handled by professionals. The article closes with some indications of potential consequences of employing a different approach to extraordinary experiences.

This article reviews and compares the use of confinement and other restrictive measures against young people under 18 in child welfare and/or the criminal justice systems in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Young people are confined for a variety of reasons, including protection, care, treatment, and punishment. However, confinement of young people is a contested issue because it can be viewed as necessary but also potentially harmful. Comparison of legislation and practices reveals that while there are some similarities in the service provisions for young people, there are also significant disparities among the four countries regarding the organization, function, and frequency of the use of confinement and restrictive measures. While Denmark and Sweden use secure welfare institutions, Finland and Norway apply other restrictive measures. Despite the differences in approaches to confinement in the Nordic countries, the use of confinement is guided by the principle of the child's best interest, and the child welfare system is the main frame for confinement and intervention. The article discusses these disparate practices from the perspective of children's rights and identifies new avenues for research and practice.

This article describes how abuse and neglect of the elderly was made an issue for research in a Nordic perspective. The Council of Nordic Ministers funded a cooperation between Nordic researchers on the issue of abuse of the elderly, based on a Norwegian initiative in 1988. The aim was to establish a base of knowledge in order to recommend social and political measures for each country. The researchers were chosen from the disciplines of social work, social anthropology, sociology, nursing sciences and medicine. Interested researchers were hard to find in Iceland and Denmark. Important results are on a theoretical level the discussion and perspectives on the definition of "family", "violence" and "elderly". On the practical level the results reveal that between 8% and 17% of a random population sample in Denmark, Sweden and Finland knew about elderly people being abused in their homes. Between 1 and 8% of elderly people living in their homes are being abused by their close kin, according to either the old people themselves or as reported by home nurses. In one of the Swedish projects 12% of close family members, being responsible for the care of a demented, mostly spouse or parent, admitted abuse towards the demented person. Swedish home nurses described the difficulties in intervening into the abusive families.

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