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Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg

Aarhus University, Aarhus Universitet, University of Southern Denmark, Regional Hospital Silkeborg

ORCID iD 0000-0002-1235-0206
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About

In recent years I have established myself as a researcher exploring experiences, both in relation to being embedded in the cross field between medical culture and spiritual traditions.

Heart openings
Presently, I take part in the visual anthropological project HEART Openings, which seeks to explore the experience and cultivation of love within religious and contemplative practice. The project, which engages with Tibetan Buddhism, Christianity, and Sufi Islam, is led by prof. Christian Suhr. It is funded by an ERC grant and takes place in Denmark, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Egypt, Tanzania, the UK and the United States. I am exploring lived experiences of love in a Danish context, in which I focus on priests who have experiences of love based on their faith, and members of a spiritual community that is affiliated with Tibetan Buddhism.

Exploring how medical culture might affect spirituality, I have contributed to investigate the process of death and dying in a methodologically innovative way. In my PhD research I followed cancer patients with ethnic minority or majority background in the last stages of their illness. By relating to them and exploring what their spirituality meant to them as dying persons, I learnt about how the secular, medical context influenced their death. My phenomenological and existential embodied approach enabled me to form close working relationships with informants, and to gain insight into their life worlds. Consequenctly, some patients allowed me to follow them in their process of dying. This has given a unique opportunity to explore the uncertainties arising in the actual dying process, both regarding medical decision making and existential concerns, from the perspectives of patients, but also relatives and healthcare professionals. Also, it gave glimpses into the importance some of the informants gave to having a religious or spiritual practice and expecting that life would continue after death.

Borderlands of Living
In my previous position as a post doc at the Interacting Minds Centre and the Centre for Planned Surgery at the Regional Hospital Silkeborg, I took part in the project “Borderlands of living”. Here I contributed to the exploration of personhood, consciousness and decision taking among comatose patients by conducting fieldwork among clinicians and therapists working to detect signs of consciousness. In collaboration with anthropologist prof. Mette Terp Hoybye and philosopher Lise Marie Andersen we were establishing a multi-perspective on the interactions and considerations taking place among both researchers and clinicians involved in developing more sensitive tools to identify the patient’s cognitive capacity. In the follow-up project, I explored the relatives' experience of the illness trajectory and how their knowledge about the patient gained influence on how the level of consciousness was being assessed and the potential for recovery was evaluated. For this a narrative approach was applied.

Mindfulness and Compassion
Alongside, I been involved in a mixed method study documenting the experienced effect of training mindfulness and compassion among hospice staff. In that project my competences as a qualitative researcher were used to develop an understanding of the changes the hospice staff reported both in the quantitative and qualitative evaluation. By being present and observing, doing individual and focus group interviews, we were able to create the framework for a short documentary. The video shows the atmosphere that can be created due to the involvement of hospice staff in meditation and similar practices and also illustrates the experienced benefits from learning to be self-compassionate and mindful when working in emotional challenging areas of life.

Affiliation
For many years, I have been affiliated to the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen, lastly as external lecturer. I have enjoyed teaching and developing these modules (in Danish or English): “The Sociology of Aging and Dying”, “Sociology of Health”, “Research Design”, “The Sociology of the Body” and “Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. The latest course, ”Researching Social Change” was taught twice as a summer course with great success. I have also been collaborating with researchers and teachers closely related to the health care system and assisted in research proposals, participating in research conducted at hospitals and taught both nurses, doctors and social assistants about the importance of a holistic approach to the patient and their relatives; mostly for people affiliated with palliative care.

Background
I earned my master degree at the Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University (2008), and my doctorate (2017) at the Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Southern Denmark.

Employment

  • Aarhus University DTAP-eksternal, External TAP
    2025 - Present
  • Silkeborg Regional Hospital Post doc
    2022 - 2022
  • Danish Patient Safety Authority Research consultant
    2021 - 2021
  • Aarhus Universitet Post doc
    2019 - Present
  • Regional Hospital Silkeborg Post doc
    2019 - Present
  • University of Copenhagen External Lecturer
    2015 - Present
  • University of Copenhagen Research Assistant
    2014 - 2015
  • Folk University of Aarhus Lecturer in "Existential considerations in Palliative Care"
    2012 - 2013
  • Folk University of Copenhagen Lecturer in "Psychology of Religion"
    2011 - 2012
  • University of Southern Denmark PhD Fellow
    2010 - 2013
  • University of Copenhagen Research Assistant
    2007 - 2009
  • Københavns Universitet
    ? - 2021

Education

  • University of Southern Denmark PhD
    2010 - 2017
  • Aarhus Universitet BA, the Study of Religion, with minor in Turkish
    1995 - 2001
  • Aarhus Universitet MA, Study of Religion

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (84)