Biographical Sketches
Julie L. Thorsheim
Julie Thorsheim is licensed by the Minnesota Board of Social Work at the independent clinical level (LICSW). She is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers (ACSW) of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), and has been awarded NASW’s highest clinical certification, the Diplomate in Clinical Social Work. Her employment history includes child welfare, school social work and mental health. She was a child and family therapist on the Behavioral Services staff of Fairview-University Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1987 through 2001, has worked in private practice and taught part-time in the Social Work Department at St. Olaf College. Thorsheim earned the Master of Social Work degree from the University of Illinois in Urbana, where she was a University Fellow. As an undergraduate at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, she majored in sociology, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and earned the degree of Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude. Thorsheim’s contributions include many decades of social work practice, conducting clinical training seminars at mental health agencies and in graduate school programs, and making educational presentations at regional, national and international conferences. Her main focus is now on providing consultation and training in innovative approaches in assessment and therapeutic intervention. In the last decade, she has become increasingly involved in cross-cultural and international consultation.
David Kvebæk
David Kvebæk’s long and productive career spans the ministry, family therapy, public speaking, writing, painting and business consulting. His training in psychotherapy included tutelage under psychiatrists who founded the Modum Bad Nervesanitorium in Vikersund, Norway. It was in his role as Norway’s first family therapist, at this holistic mental health center that he developed the “Kvebæk Family Sculpture Test” in the late 1960′s, first for case presentations to the multi-disciplinary team, and soon in his direct work with the patients. When he left the field of family therapy, his systems thinking turned to applications in larger systems: work groups, local community entities, and organizations. Large international companies such as Toyota contracted his services. In his Consulting Business, he instructed organizational relations professionals in methods he developed to apply concrete human resources assessment and analysis skills in industrial and community settings. He has authored a number of books, has been a regular contributor to professional journals and the popular press, and is a recognized artist (painting). Today, in his retirement, Kvebæk continues writing. He lives in Lillestrøm, Norway, with his wife Reidun. They are parents to three children, many grand-children, and have become great-grandparents in recent years.
Stein Hardeng
Stein Hardeng is an assistant professor at the Institute for Social Work and Family Therapy, Diakonhjemmet University College, where he has taught for more than 25 years. He is a well-known clinical social worker, family therapist, licensed supervisor, and social work instructor. His clinical experience includes individual, group and family therapy, and he is recognized for his work with support groups dealing with separation and divorce. He has been leading these groups, on a volunteer basis, for 21 years, and these groups lasting six months have served 450 individuals over this time span. He is active in presenting and publishing in this area. Educated in Norway, he graduated from the School of Social Work in Stavanger in 1971, and examine Philosophicum from the University of Oslo in 1976. Additional work includes: advanced training in family therapy, supervision and administration. Hardeng has also been called upon as an administrator, serving as General Secretary for the 22 Church Family Counseling agencies in Norway (2004-2009), and during this time he was granted a leave from his teaching position at the University College. He was a Fulbright Scholar to the United States in 1978 where he worked in the Department of Social Services in Durham, North Carolina. Hardeng contributed a social-ecological perspective in a seminar presentation at Modum Bads Nervesanatorium in 1974, in showing his first design of of a three-level “systemplansje” to illustate the family sub-system, system and supra-system in families’ lives. Subsequently, he used his Systems map as a backdrop for the Kvebæk Sculpture dolls in his social work teaching to help students understand the individual and family in a larger context. Building on this work, Hardeng and a social work student Liv Øyen Strind (also a graphic designer) created the Agora Nettverks’ Skulpturering, © Mønsterbeskyttet 73943, in 1995. This was published in Norwegian as Agora: Nettverks –Skulpturering, Stein Hardeng, Diakonhjemmets sosialhøgskole, Oslo, Norway, 1999.