Linn Falkenberg

I am a registered nurse, public health scholar, and doctoral researcher in caring science at Karolinska Institutet. My doctoral project explores the connection between chronic pain, spiritual health, and DNA stability in the form of telomeres. I am part of the Integrative Care research group and have also taught courses in integrative nursing.

My clinical journey has taken me through infectious disease care, psychiatry, home healthcare, and emergency medicine—before finally finding home within integrative care, which I often describe as the happy marriage between conventional and complementary care. It was within this discipline that I discovered a philosophy of care that recognizes the spiritual dimension of the human being. To me, that is what a holistic perspective truly means: meeting the whole person—body, soul, and spirit. With such a perspective, I also get to bring the wholeness of myself into the care I give—which, then transform into an artform.

I recently co-edited a Swedish anthology on integrative care, and alongside my research, I serve as CEO of two companies engaged in international collaborations across health, research, and digital innovation.

My doctoral project focuses on deepening the understanding of spiritual health as a potentially protective and transformative force in the experience of chronic pain. I explore links between existential well-being, physical biomarkers such as telomere length, and the lived experience of suffering, healing, and health.

My research moves through the borderlands of nursing science, public health, molecular medicine, integrative care, and consciousness studies. It combines qualitative and quantitative methods and is grounded in an ontological view of healing as a multidimensional process that encompasses body, soul, and spirit.

I am especially interested in how spiritual health can be integrated into healthcare structures, and how it—as a e.g part of inner sustainability—can serve as a pathway to long-term health, both individually and societally.