Signe Unmack Larsen

My educational background is within the fields of psychology and communication from Roskilde University (RUC), where I achieved my bachelor and masters degree. During my studies, I found the relationship between human reproduction and meaning-making of narratives and cultural accounts of humaneness extremely interesting, since it relates to how humans are made able to function the world.

After finishing my studies within the humanistic tradition, I have turned my attention towards Health Science and have been involved in several projects within RFM including the Humour project, the WAPS project and Relatives and patient involvement as a research assistant.

From 2025 and onward I have gained the opportunity to work with my PhD entitled:

[PURE_CAP I] Preventing the Use of Restrictive practices in Child and Adolescent mental health Patients. Part I: A Multiple case study and qualitative interview study

This project aims to generate knowledge on the use of restrictive practises (RP) in CAP (<18y) mental health inpatients from the perspectives of patients, relatives and staff and to develop knowledge about mental health professionals’ decision-making regarding such use, RP-trigger-typologies before use, prolonging factors during use and care provided after the use of RP.

Or, in other words, the projects seeks to understand how the use of restrictive practises, such as the use of belts, medicine, holding, time-out, force-feedings and the like are percieved by children and young people and how they, together with their relatives and staff characterize the reasons for the use and how to minimize.

The project has been made possible through careful collaboration between research facilities across Denmark and Internationally through the supervising teams consisting of professor Frederik A. Gildberg, professor John Baker, associate professor Jens Peter Hansen and senior researcher Sanne Lemcke.

The project is realized through funding provided by Independent Research Fund Denmark (Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond).

Research areas: Forensic inpatients; children and adolescents; staff; pragmatism; phenomenology; hermenutics; discourse-studies; existentialism; constructivism; interviews (single, in-depth and focus); thematic analysis, WHO.

If you have any questions or wish to get in touch, don’t hestitate to write to me sunmack@health.sdu.dk.