For more than 30 years, psychoanalyst and Professor Emerita Siri Gullestad has listened to people in the therapy room. In conversation with physician and author Ellen Støkken Dahl, she shares insights from a lifetime as a therapist, with a particular focus on love, our expectations of life, and the many things we struggle to understand about ourselves and others.
Drawing on Gullestad's two books, Ordinarily Unhappy (2024) and Desiring the One You Love (2021), the discussion explores our need for security and our longing for excitement, how we cope with loss and grief, and what we expect from life.
Siri Gullestad is Professor Emerita of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oslo and a practising psychoanalyst. She has published numerous books and academic articles.
Ellen Støkken Dahl is a physician and author. Together with Nina Brochmann, she has written several award-winning and internationally translated non-fiction books on the body and sexual health, including The Wonder Down Under, The Girls' Book and The Boys' Book. In autumn 2025, she made her fiction debut with the short story collection Dyrisk (Animalistic), which includes, among others, the story of a woman undergoing psychoanalysis.
This event is part of Kapittel – Stavanger International Festival for Literature and Freedom of Expression, taking place from 16–20 September 2026. For more information, the full programme and tickets, visit www.kapittel.no.
Please note that photographs and video may be taken at selected events at Sølvberget and during the Kapittel Festival for documentation and use on social media.
