Mai-Britt is an authorised psychologist, certified specialist in psychotherapy and supervision, PhD. from the Institute for Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark. She is former professor and research director. Now she works as senior researcher and director at Center for Grief and Existential Values.

She is the author of 5 books about grief, 12 book chapters about grief and existential issues and an extensive list of academic papers.

Mai-Britt is born in Sønderborg, Denmark in 1969. Today she lives in a little town house in Aarhus City Centre with her family.

“Moments of connectedness, love and meaning come to my mind as a psychologist. I have worked with seriously ill, dying and grieving persons for more than 20 years and have had thousands of sessions about challenging life situations. My experience is that in a conversation about death or grief, many people take up existential questions and the meaning of life. Some people seek happiness or to live as long as possible, but for many meaning in life is found in harmony and calmness through the connectedness to self or others, or even to nature, art, or the common good.

Existential awareness and insight into the self is a big and deep gift. In the sessions, I look past the anxiety, the grief, or the suffering and look for the person behind all that. Often these sessions focus on life, daring to see it as it is while letting death and grief be present with us and looking for a balance to meet the givens of life.

I have learned that it is impossible to trick yourself into believing that it is always someone else struck by fate. I must dare to look at the truth that we all will get challenged by life. I have to accept anxiety, existential meaninglessness or aloneness and dare to see the vulnerability of it. This paints a brutal picture of life but also provides life with a humility that presents gratefulness. It demands that I look at my existential values and the way I live my life and every day get up and try to be the best I can be and contribute to our shared community. It also means that the love for my family shines bright and clear. Instead of letting something outside myself dictate meaning, is becomes clear that it is the inner mood that gives life a sensation of greatness. Out of the shadow of death and grief, a deep and clear sense of compassion has grown. It is the sense that life is vast and so much bigger than me. And I feel obligated to this sense of life. It is the thought of our shared community that is precious to me".

From the interview with Mai-Britt in the book: Hvad døden har lært mig om livet (what death has taught me about life), Kristeligt Dagblads Forlag, 2019.

Carlo Leget is currently professor in Care Ethics at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, the Netherlands

He is author of a number of books and he has given speeches and courses in Austria, Belgium, Brasil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Great Britain, and USA.

Carlo was born in the city of Vught in the Netherlands (1964). Today he lives alternately in a little town outside Utrecht, Netherlands and in Aarhus City Centre, Denmark.