Suvi-Maria Saarelainen

My research interest is focused on the experience of meaning during/in life changes and transitions of life. My doctoral thesis focused on how emerging adults with cancer appraised their life as meaningful. In addition, I was interested to study the role of spirituality in the coping process. During the post doctoral phase, I am studying meaning in life among the elderly; furthermore, I am scrutinizing how they see gerontechonlgy as part of their care. In our Meaningful Relations -project, the focus is in the experiences of patients and carers going through palliative care at home.

While working as a post doc at the department of applied psychology, Univ. of Huddersfield, UK, I worked in two (ongoing) project. In the first project we are analysing the dyadic interviews of patient and carer during the end-of-life care. Second, we launched a new project focusing on well-being of the post graduate students (PGR).

Visual research methods I found very intriguing. In all of my studies, I have employed visual elements.