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Are you eager to explore and understand existential questions that impact human life? The International Summer School on Existential Psychology and Meaning in Life offers an intellectually stimulating and immersive week in Oslo, August 2026.
This one-week course addresses themes such as meaning in life, suffering, mortality, and existential health. Our approach blends philosophical, psychological, and practical perspectives. It does not promote any specific religious perspective and is open to participants of all worldviews.
Take part in interactive lectures, group activities, reflection exercises, and excursions throughout the week. You'll gain theoretical insights and practical tools for understanding and navigating life's existential dimensions. And you can enjoy and explore beautiful Oslo!
Lectures at the summer school will be delivered by Tatjana Schnell, Peter la Cour, Gry Stålsett, and Ole Magnus Vik.
Language: English
Tentative Schedule
Day 1 - Welcome and introduction
Morning until 15.00: Registration
15.00 - 18.00: Welcome and introduction to each other, teachers, and the summer school theme
18.30: Social dinner
Day 2 - What is existential health and healthcare?
- An existential approach to what it means to be human in society
- From the biopsychosocial model of health to existential health
- Introduction to existential psychotherapy
- Meaning in life as the basis for mental and physical health
- Practicing existential conversations
- Existential evening in nature
Day 3 - How can we apply existential perspectives to struggles in life?
- Existential givens as a source of mental health and mental illness
- Existential core themes in diagnostics, assessment, and treatment
- Addressing faith, feelings, values, and meaning clinically
- Existential first aid: encountering crisis, death, and collapse of meaning
- The interplay between existential vulnerability, empowerment, and resilience as grounds for mental health
Day 4 - How can we live meaningfully?
- What is a meaningful life?
- Exploring sources of meaning with the Sources of Meaning Card Method (SoMCAM)
- The dark side of meaning
- Philosophy of meaning in life and its consequences for lived experience
- Visit to MUNCH museum
Day 5 - Bringing existence to life
- From philosophy and psychology to lived experience
- Take aways
- End: 15.00
Programme fee for the full week course
Regular fee: EUR 850 (ca. 9600 NOK*)
Participants pay a non-refundable deposit of EUR 100 (ca. 1100 NOK*) when registering. Only if the course is cancelled, the deposit will be refunded.
Meals and activites listed in the schedule is included in the price.
*According to exchange rate 23.02.2026.
It is also possible to just attend the one-day course on meaningful life or two-day course on existential approach to clinical work.