Eva Dalsgaard Axelsen And Sissel Bakke

The new journey back about change through therapy

Den nye tilbakereisen. Om forandring gjennom terapi

Sissel Bakke begins therapy as an adult. The focus during the therapy sessions is on her relationship with her father. As a result of these sessions, glimpses of Sissel’s childhood experiences come back to her. She realizes that she can no longer lie to herself. But how should she handle the knowledge she has acquired during these sessions? If she was a victim of sexual abuse, how does she deal with the love she felt for her father during her youth?

Sissel’s therapy sessions with Eva Dalsgaard Axelsen lasted for two and a half years. During that time, Sissel wrote a diary and Eva took notes. Together they published the book, The Journey Back, twenty years ago. Recently, they met again and renewed their collaboration. The New Journey Back contains the conversations they had while Sissel was in therapy as well as their more recent dialogue in which they discussed how events unfolded after the end of the sessions. Did therapy work for Sissel? What did Eva experience during the conversations with her patient? What kind of knowledge did Sissel acquire? Did she ever tell her mother about the abuse?

The New Journey Back is a book about the power and possibilities of therapy. Written in collaboration between the well-known psychologist Eva Dalsgaard Axelsen and her client Sissel Bakke, this book provides unique insight into what therapy can do for both client and therapist. The book also contains a chapter about the therapeutic and theoretical studies on which Eva Dalsgaard Axelsen bases her practice.

Pax Forlag 2012
350 Pages

English sample translation available

Eva Dalsgaard Axelsen is among Norway’s most well-known psychologists. She works at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Oslo, and is the author of several articles and books on psychology and therapy, among them Psychotherapy and the Story of Bestiality (Original title: Psykoterapi og bestialitetens historie. 2007) and The Symptom as an Asset (Original title: Symptomet som ressurs, 2009).

SISSEL BAKKE is a pseudonym.