Joakim Appell
Compassionate Inquiry™ — Swedish and English, on Zoom or in person in Stockholm
Joakim is a co-owner of Co-Compassion and a therapist working with addiction and developmental trauma through a non-pathologising lens. His approach rests on the understanding that addictive behaviours and mental-health difficulties are often adaptive ways of coping rather than signs of something inherently broken.
He works experientially and in the present, staying with what is alive in the room and in the body rather than with the account of it, and prefers a partnership to the traditional hierarchy of therapy, where practitioner and client meet as equals. Much of the work is with what sits underneath the behaviour, moving gently past symptom management toward self-discovery and integration, meeting the person who remains after a long history of being assessed and categorised.
This perspective was shaped by an early life marked by a radical religious upbringing and a family history of harmful substance use and dependence, and by his own period of dependency, which served as a way of surviving generational trauma and emotional pain. His professional development grew out of a deep engagement with Dr Gabor Maté’s work and the Compassionate Inquiry™ framework.
English and Swedish sessions are available online or in person in Stockholm.
Credentials
Certified Compassionate Inquiry™ practitioner, mentor, circle leader and professional short course leader. Trained in Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy under Dr Andrew Tatarsky. Currently completing a foundational psychotherapy training with an existential and humanistic orientation. Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work; the professional Socionom qualification follows in 2027. Regional manager at SPUT, a private outpatient psychiatric clinic in Stockholm providing opioid substitution treatment.