Research output per year
Research output per year
Associate Professor
Øster Farimagsgade 5 opg. B
1353 København K
Research activity per year
My research is located at the interfaces between philosophy, art and medicine to investigate humanistic, existential and ethical aspects in illness, treatment and health. In this research, I focus on medical ethics, especially clinical ethics (ethical challenges in the clinic) and humanistic health research, especially the development of a narrative, philosophical and aesthetic approach to health practice. I work ethnographically with participatory art and philosophy projects particularly in pediatrics, disability and chronic disease rehabilitation and personalized medicine. A particular point of attention is method development that can support and grow creative, critical and dialogic environments within the health care sector (for health care professionals and patients).
Theoretically, I primarily draw on existential phenomenology and hermeneutics, philosophy of existence and dialogue, moral and value theories, ancient philosophy and Stoicism. Engaged in arguing both theoretically and empirically, I participate in research interventions that study the beneficial impact of philosophy and art on well-being and self-care after illness and/or trauma. The goal is to develop ways in which research and practice mutually fertilize each other and to support a holistic patient understanding.
Concepts of special interest:
Death, mortality, the self, being, time, hope, vulnerability, creativity, intersubjectivity, resonance, hope, the good death, the good life, art of living and dialogue.
2028-2023 – WP in MORPHEUS
MORPHEUS is a European Horizon research project that includes France (PI), Spain and Denmark. The purpose of the project is to predict the risk of unprovoked venous blood clots in specific patient groups and to develop a tool for 'joint decision-making' that will ensure patients' involvement in decisions about treatment and prevention. My ethnographic work consists of observations of clinical interactions and conducting interviews with clinicians and patients as a starting point for developing a model for ‘shared decision-making.’ The qualitative element for which I am responsible aims to 1) collect, describe and analyze patients' experiences and perceptions of unprovoked blood clots and treatment; and 2) identify patients' and clinicians' expectations and concerns in connection with testing the project's developed decision support tool. The field work will be held at Aabenaa hospital, which is MORPHEUS' Danish partner.
2026-2024 – PI for DET: Det Eksistentielle Teater: The good life for young adults with cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis through drama, music and dialogue.
DET: The Existential Theater combines drama improvisation, the sound images of music and the immersion of existential dialogue. DET is based on personal stories and consists of 9 workshops for a group of young adults with CP and 9 workshops for a group with MS. By incorporating young adults' big questions about a life with a lifelong disability, the project engages in a dialogue with central themes that the healthcare and social system rarely or never address. The project collaborates with the patient associations CP Danmark and the Sclerosis Association. Empirical material is obtained through participant observation in the project's activities and in the project's user panel, as well as 16 in-depth semi-structured interviews after the intervention has been completed. Follow-up interviews will take place six months after completion to assess the impact of participation on everyday life. Professional artists and a philosophical facilitator are associated with the project. A filmmaker will make a documentary of the participants' experiences and process.
2024-2017: Research and Ethics Lab coordinator in the research project 'Personalized medicine in the Danish welfare state' (MeInWe), where 12 interdisciplinary researchers study the ethical, organizational and legal issues in the implementation of personalized medicine in Denmark. My research focus: Studying ethical themes and the development of a structure for ethical dialogue (i.e. the ethical laboratories) with representatives from the medical and social sciences, clinical practice and research, public and private organizations in the healthcare sector. In the ethical laboratories, MeInWe's researchers and its collaborators explore conceptual, empirical and normative questions in our work with personalized medicine. The participants experience greater moral awareness and less professional tunnel vision through the Ethics Lab's two exercises: first, participants reflect by themselves and later reflect together but with a dialogue partner on a chosen theme. Financed by Semper Arden grant from the Carlsberg Foundation, awarded to professor Mette Nordahl Svendsen (PI). Link to MeInWe: https://meinwe.ku.dk.
2024-2023: WP contributor in the research project REDESIGN, a European ERA PerMed project co-financed by the European Commission: I am responsible for organizing and implementing the Ethical Laboratories. The Ethical Laboratories bring together practitioners and representatives from patient organizations to jointly investigate the moral issues that arise in the integration of patient-derived organoids (PDOs) in precision oncology.
Read about previous projects under CV
My academic background is in Continental Philosophy, Copenhagen University. Additional degrees in Theater Studies and Religious Studies, Copenhagen University. Diploma in Philosphical Practice, University of Oslo and the Norwegian Society of Philosophical Practice & certified Socratic dialogue facilitator, the Norwegian Society of Philosophical Practice.
Before I came to the Section for Health Services Research, I taught for a long time at different departments and universities (especially at the University of Copenhagen, DIS and St. Olaf College in the United States) as well as at university colleges (especially at SUND / Kleo UCC). Simultaneously, I worked with independent research projects, especially in the field of health care and has been affiliated with different research centers (Center for Ethics and Law and Søren Kierkegaards Research Center). I have previously worked as a dramaturg and assistant stage director in an American based theater company in Paris and as a counselor in the Danish Psychiatry Foundation.
Affiliations
Member of the Clinical Ethics Committee for Pediatrics, the Juliane Marie Center, the University Hospital, Copenhagen (2012-)
Member of the Board for The Danish Society for Clinical Ethics (2020- ; 2012-2018, vice-chairman 2014-2018)
Member of the Board for The Danish Society for Philosophical Practice (2006-2018, chairman 2011-2018)
Member of the Steering Committee for PROSPER (Precision Symtom Care Research Network), the University Hospital, Rigshospitalet (2023- )
Member of the Steering Committee for the Nordic Network for Narratives in Medicine (2016-)
Member of the Steering Committee for Nordic Network of Kierkegaard Research (2011-2016)
Research Studies and Visits after 1998:
Pilotproject with professor Rita Charon on the use of Socratic dialogue among doctors and staff (current). Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics (The Narrative Medicine Program), the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA - 2019
Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics (The Narrative Medicine Program), the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA - 2018
Department of Medical Humanities, Free University of Amsterdam (VUmc), Holland - 2014
Department of Anthropology, University of Southern California, USA - 2014
Center for Biomedical Ethics & Humanities, University of Virginia, VA & Center for Clinical Ethics samt forskning på Bioethics Research Library, both at Georgetown University, Washington D. C., USA – 2010
The Ethics Committee, the University of Minnesota Medical Center/Fairview & Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota, USA - 2006.
Center for Bioethics, Columbia University, New York; Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania; Center for Clinical Ethics & The Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA - 2003.
Fellowship, The Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, MN, USA - 1999.
Selected publications
Books
Translations
Book chapters/prefaces
Peer-reviewed articles
Dissemination
Media:
Filmmaker Esben Frese has made a short film about my pilot project Face2Face: the potential of drama and music for children and young adults with cerebral palsy: https://youtu.be/-Y6gcl0plS0
The short film has been shown at Theater Batida, Lund University and the Cinematheque, among other places.
I have been interviewed and/or consulted by:
Previous research projects (selected):
2022-21: PI on the pilot project Face2Face. The pilot project investigated how the use of drama can benefit children and young adults with cerebral palsy. Drama exercises dealt with topics such as self-acceptance, well-being and stigmatization. By increasing participants' imagination through role-playing and music, the project demonstrated how artistic methods supported a greater courage to be in their bodies and minds which benefited their personal and social identity. However, the project also revealed serious and unmet existential needs which needs to be investigated in a larger research project (under development). The project took place at the Elsass Foundation. Responsible for the artistic aspect was actress and director Lotte Arnsbjerg. Financed by Helsefonden and Beckett Fonden. Link to a 10-minute film about the project’s final show: https://youtu.be/-Y6gcl0plS0
2019: PI on project collaboration on Socratic dialogue; with professor, MD and PhD Rita Charon, head of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics (The Narrative Medicine Program), Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, USA. Socratic dialogue strives to form an investigative community that openly and curiously deals with philosophical questions in practice. The training program in Socratic dialogue facilitation is expected to be implemented among doctors and healthcare professionals at the Presbyterian Hospital, New York City. The purpose is to create a forum for philosophizing about important ethical themes for medical practice, for example burnout and moral injury in a safe and confidential forum. Funded by Columbia University. Paused due to the Covid pandemic. To be resumed.
2018-2016: PI on an individual research project: Sequelae and Survivorship: Being in Life after Cancer? There is a tacit assumption when cancer treatment is successful that the person has recovered and can continue their life where it was left off. However, several studies show that it is problematic to return to status quo. The cancer experience caused an upheaval of existence, and this fundamental upheaval often causes major questions, e.g. the meaning of life and who am I now, and yet survivors are left to their own devices after treatment ends. However, shouldn't this existential upheaval be understood as a serious sequelae? The project investigated whether and how illness narratives mark long-term survival. Through 16 interviews with cancer survivors, the project studied how the previous illness experience lingers many years later (5-10-15 years). As notions and thoughts about death and mortality, selfhood and identity emerged as central thematic axes from the interviewees, a primary lens of interpretation became Heidegger's analysis of death and Kierkegaard's concept of the self and despair. Funded by the Danish Cancer Society under the ‘Knæk Cancer’ program.
2015-2012: PI on an individual research project: Thinking in Action, Re-thinking Life – Socratic Dialogue with People in Cancer Rehabilitation. The project was an empirical-philosophical study of the very act and art of philosophizing with people who had either just finished or were about to finish their cancer treatment, or who were chronically but not currently ill with cancer. The project studied the practice and benefit of Socratic dialogue among these people through sessions with three groups. I acted as a Socratic facilitator in the groups and investigated the ethical practice of 'self-care' in the tradition of Socrates and Foucault, in order to offer a conceptual clarification of conditions and aspects of Socratic dialogue groups within cancer rehabilitation. The project showed that the participants rediscovered themselves as person vs. patient, while simultaneously experiencing their existence being situated in a larger existential perspective (helicopter view, which was both concrete and abstract). Finally, the project showed how the loneliness experienced by many cancer patients was broken and a strong community created by listening to fellow participants' personal stories with a philosophical question, e.g. what is a good life? Funded by the Danish Cancer Society.
2013-2012: PI on the research project: Ethical decision-making – development and investigation of a model for ethical reflection in connection with decisions about life and death at University Hospital’s neonatal clinic (Rigshospitalet). Based on ethnographic work at the neonatal clinic, I developed a reflection model for investigating the ethical landscape in challenging situations. It exists in both a large and a small version, respectively for use in a Clinical Ethics Committee and in the clinic. The model contains four aspects of ethical decision-making: context, concerns, consequences and conflicts (and is therefore called the 4C model). It is intended as a structuring and systematic reflection tool that can inspire and give rise to ethical discussion and cooperation on ethical issues.
You can read more about the projects and their findings in articles and chapters that I have written: See under CV and publications.
Please find full list of publications under CV.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Contribution to newspaper - Newspaper article › Communication
Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Review › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review