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Areas of expertise
Biography
PhD, senior researcher of comparative literature (School of History, Culture and Arts Studies), and trained biblio/poetry therapist and bibliotherapeutic educator.
Member of SELMA (Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory) and part of the Turku-based team in the Academy of Finland consortium (2018–2022) Instrumental Narratives: The Limits of Storytelling and New Story-Critical Narrative Theory.
Current Research Project Counter-Narratives of Cancer. Shaping Narrative Agency (Research Council of Finland, former Academy of Finland) 2023-2027.
Teaching
Bibliotherapy, autobiographical literature
Research
I have studied autobiographical literature and the genre history of the autobiography from antiquity and the Middle Ages to the modern and late modern era. As a bibliotherapist, my work focuses on therapeutic writing and therapeutic reading. In addition to my individual clients, I host bibliotherapeutic developmental groups in different communal settings. I am also interested in the theoretical aspects related to bibliotherapy, and I am keenly interested in constructing a more delicate and critical bibliotherapeutic reading method that can be applied on a more general basis in health and care-related work. My most recent publications in this area include “Creative Autobiography. From Self-knowledge to the Teaching of Writing” (2015) and “Towards Therapeutic Reading. Part I: Identity Work: Growth and Development through Reading” (2018).