Sleep Difficulties and Disorders (Insomnia)

Which treatment method is best suited for you is something we figure out together during the first conversations. The choice depends on your challenges, your personality, your life situation, and what scientific research shows has the best effect on your difficulties.

As a specialist, I have training in and experience with several different treatment approaches. This allows me to adapt the method to your unique needs, rather than forcing you into one specific framework. I do not rely on a single method for everyone but often combine different treatment approaches to create change and promote the best possible improvement.

Psychoeducation (Knowledge sharing)

I use psychoeducation as an integrated part of treatment for all patients. This is a systematic and educational approach where we teach you and possibly your family about the relevant mental health challenge or diagnosis. Understanding your own condition and your own reaction patterns is often half the battle. The goal is not just to provide dry information but to equip you with knowledge that makes it easier to cope with everyday life.

Medication

As a psychiatrist (physician), I can assess whether medication can be a useful support for you during the treatment process. If medication is relevant, it is almost always used in combination with talk therapy and close medical follow-up.

As a psychiatrist, I am a medical doctor specialising in mental health. This means I have specialist expertise in assessing whether, when, and how medication — often called psychopharmaca — can be a safe and useful part of your recovery process. Medication is rarely a complete solution on its own, but it can function as an important support in daily life. Medication works best when combined with conversations, reflection, and tools for coping. The goal is often for medication to give you the necessary surplus to make changes in your life.

Here are the most common situations where medication may be relevant:

1. 1

   For moderate to severe mental disorders: When mental difficulties become so intense that they paralyse your daily functioning, medication can help dampen the most severe symptoms. This applies especially to:

   • Severe depression: To restore chemical balance in the brain, give you back your sleep, and lift your energy enough that you can benefit from talk therapy.
   • Bipolar disorder: Mood-stabilising medication is often essential to prevent and dampen the large swings between deep depressions and manic episodes.
   • Severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): When anxiety is so paralysing that you cannot expose yourself to what you fear (exposure therapy), medication can take the edge off the panic.
   • Psychoses and schizophrenia: Antipsychotic medication is crucial for dampening hallucinations, thought chaos, and delusions.
   • Major and persistent sleep difficulties.

1. 2

   For neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD: With ADHD, the brain's ability to regulate attention and impulses is biologically impaired. Central stimulants or other targeted ADHD medications can help the brain gather thoughts, increase concentration, and dampen inner and outer restlessness.

1. 3

   When other measures have not been sufficient: If you have tried talk therapy, lifestyle changes, or other measures over time without noticing sufficient improvement, it may be relevant to add medication support to break the negative pattern.

My private practice is based on planned daytime consultations and lacks the multidisciplinary support system and emergency preparedness found in hospitals. To avoid misdirected referrals and unrealistic expectations, it is important to be transparent about whom I am unable to help in my practice.

Unfortunately, I am unable to accept patients with the following challenges:

• Active, moderate to severe substance use disorders (addiction): These conditions often require multidisciplinary specialised substance abuse treatment (TSB). Note: Patients who have had substance use challenges in the past but are now stable and substance-free and need treatment for underlying mental disorders (e.g. ADHD or affective disorders) are warmly welcome.

• Acute psychoses and unresolved schizophrenic conditions: These conditions require immediate help, close follow-up by ambulatory teams (AAT/FACT) or admission to a closed ward. A private practice does not have the emergency preparedness required for severe loss of reality. However, I can follow up patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorders who are already under medical treatment and are in a stable phase.

• Acute crises, serious suicidal thoughts, or pronounced self-harm impulses: This requires round-the-clock follow-up and a closer safety net around the patient. These patients belong in public acute psychiatry. In case of acute suicidal danger, the emergency clinic or local acute ward must be contacted immediately.

• Severe anorexia or bulimia: Conditions with critical somatic complications and medical instability require close multidisciplinary follow-up by a nutritionist, internist, and often hospitalisation.

• Deeper intellectual disability (F70–F79) with major behavioural disorders: These patients often need coordinated services from the municipality, NAV, housing, and the specialised habilitation service.

• Coercion and forensic psychiatry: All forms of coercion (compulsory mental health care) and follow-up of convicted patients require formal legal frameworks that lie exclusively within the public health system.