I completed my PhD in Medical Science, with a specialization in Occupational Therapy, at the Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, in 2014. I am a registered occupational therapist with many years of clinical experience in mental health services, both in public and private settings. These clinical experiences have strongly shaped my research, which focuses on how mental health care, support services, and preventive interventions can promote recovery, participation, and a meaningful everyday life for people experiencing mental health challenges. During my clinical work, I met many people, particularly young adults, who wanted to participate in society on equal terms with others but experienced barriers related to limited support, stigma, and restricted opportunities for engagement and participation. These experiences sparked my interest in developing and evaluating interventions that better respond to people’s needs and strengthen their opportunities for recovery, participation, and influence over their everyday lives and care.

My current research focuses on mental health, recovery, and participation. One central area is the development and evaluation of integrated, person-centred, and recovery-oriented models of mental health care and support, including Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (FACT). I study both how such models are organized and implemented and how they are experienced by people receiving care and support, as well as their potential impact on participation in everyday life, quality of life, and personal recovery. Another important area of my research concerns stigma and self-stigma related to mental health problems, including how self-stigma may affect identity, self-esteem, participation, and recovery. My research also includes suicide and suicide prevention, with a particular interest in how care and support following a suicide attempt can be developed to become more person-centred, coherent, and recovery-oriented.

I also conduct research focusing on young adults’ mental health, particularly during the transition to adulthood, a period often characterised by major changes in education, work, relationships, finances, and living arrangements, as well as by high demands, uncertainty, and loneliness. My research examines how these factors influence mental well-being, participation, and occupational balance, as well as the role of mental health literacy, stigma, and barriers to seeking support. I also study how universities can work preventively through low-threshold initiatives, campus-based support, and digital solutions co-developed with young adults to ensure that they are relevant, accessible, and useful in everyday life.

A cross-cutting perspective in my research is co-production, in which people with lived experience of mental health problems, together with other relevant stakeholders, are involved as knowledge partners throughout the research process. I am particularly interested in how co-production can contribute to making research and interventions more relevant, accessible, and useful for the people and services they are intended to support.

My research is grounded in an occupational perspective and in the interaction between person, occupation, and environment, with particular attention to how these factors influence opportunities for engagement, participation, recovery, and a meaningful life.