Arne Sund (born 14 August 1925, died 4 December 2011Obituary
''Aftenposten'', 28 December 2011, p. 15) was a Norwegian military psychiatrist. He "established Norwegian military psychiatry as leading within

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

" and is regarded as the "founder of the research field of disaster psychiatry."

Career

Sund was a member of the Milorg resistance organization during the Second World War. In 1950 he graduated as a medical doctor at the University of Oslo and he served as a military doctor in the Independent Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany and with the Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (NORMASH) during the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

in 1952. He became a captain of the

Norwegian Armed Forces The Norwegian Armed Forces () are the armed forces responsible for the defence of Norway. It consists of five branches, the Norwegian Army, the Royal Norwegian Navy, which includes the Norwegian Coast Guard, Coast Guard, the Royal Norwegian Air ...

medical service in 1955 and a lieutenant-colonel and chief psychiatrist in 1967. His own experiences from several war and conflict areas, both with stress reactions among soldiers and with the suffering of the civilian population, had great influence on his later work as a psychiatrist. He "established Norwegian military psychiatry as leading within

" from the 1960s. Through Sund's efforts Norway became "an international pioneer in the research on mass killings, war, catastrophes, accidents and all forms of violence." In 1978 he was appointed as Professor of Disaster Psychiatry at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

and the founding director of the Division of Disaster Psychiatry, a joint unit of the University of Oslo Faculty of Medicine and the Norwegian Armed Forces medical service. His chair was the first worldwide in the emerging field of disaster psychiatry. He retired in 1984 and was succeeded by his student

Lars Weisæth Lars Weisæth (born 18 April 1941) is a Norwegian military psychiatrist. He is Research Professor Emeritus at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor Emeritus of Disaster Psychiatry at the Institute of Clinical Me ...

who further developed the research field.

Bibliography

*''Historien om katastrofepsykiatrien som nytt fagområde i Norge'' (2008).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sund, Arne Norwegian psychiatrists Academic staff of the University of Oslo Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies people 1926 births 2011 deaths