About Me

Om Åsa NilsonneI am a psychiatrist and emeritus professor of medical psychology at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

My main interest is human behavior, not surprisingly for a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, educator, mother, grandmother and dog owner.

People who seek psychiatric help are usually not happy about the way they feel, think and behave. Bringing about change requires knowledge and skill – I have both, and I write partly because I want to share what I have learned over decades of clinical work.

My latest book ”Mindfulness utan flum, att leva med sina känslor” (Fact-based mindfulness, how to live with your feelings) is about what mindfulness can teach us about pain, a question which arises against the backdrop of the opioid crisis, the huge success of antidepressants, the international drug trade and the pervasive use of alcohol and nicotine in order to change the way we feel.

I have written textbooks, self-help books, books about dogs. I have also written fiction –  novels which explore the relationship between what we know about how our brain creates thoughts, emotions and actions, as well as five crime novels about the professional and personal development of a policewoman named Monika Pedersen. Why a policewoman? Because I believe that safety is a crucial aspect of any society.

Who protects us against those that want to take advantage of us? There are a number of solutions: the clan, the political elite, the priests, or, as in for instance Sweden, the police. So the policeman or policewoman seems to me to be vital to our society, and thus interesting to write about.

The two latest crime novels are set in Ethiopia, a country I lived in as a child (9-14), and that I return to as often as I can. They introduce an Ethiopian policewoman named Tigist which means patience, of which she has very little.

I have three grown sons, five grandchildren and a small hairlesss dog.


Publicity Photos

Publicity Photos for download are located here.