Dr. Sofie Bystrøm Berger

Biography

As a clinical psychologist and Ph.D. student, Sofie Bystrøm-Berger works from a systemic perspective, where individual psychopathology is understood in connection with family processes. Her interests include mental health, preventive measures, and support for relatives. Her research focus is practice-oriented, aiming to develop knowledge that can be directly applied to support, interventions, and meaningful changes for children, adolescents, and their families. She has developed SAN-I, a clinical offer that provides support to siblings and parents of children and adolescents with mental diagnoses through both family and group therapy. The program has been developed through co-creation with volunteer citizens from the target group to ensure high relevance and usability based on the relatives' own experiences. Her Ph.D. involves testing the SAN-IS project, where she investigates effects, usability, and experiences using a mixed methods approach. She combines qualitative and quantitative methods to illuminate the psychological, relational, and organizational patterns that characterize the support for relatives in psychiatry. She is particularly interested in how clinical, relational, and institutional factors influence relatives' experiences, and how interventions can be developed and evaluated to strengthen the quality and accessibility of offers to children, adolescents, and their families.

Research Interests

Experience