Jennifer
First, my mommy rock, my support, my cheerleader, my dreamer. You are a source of such inspiration, love, forgiveness, integrity, strength. You have always been my favorite person, except for that one year in junior high. You raised me with a paucity of possessions, and an abundance of love, dry humor, and green shag carpeting. I love and value you beyond words.
Kjell ToreIm remembering our first conversation. Not when we met, but the first real one, when I heard your life story. I kind of thought you were insane and I was in awe hearing about a life so whimsically patched together. Im so calculated; you are a free spirit. And I knew in that moment you would be a friend whose very way of living would challenge my neatly constructed existence. You havent let me down. Our collaboration was a joy, and I will hold on to fond memories of writing trips to Norway, the tough work of creating and defining and communicating the steps, but I am letting go of Norwegian brown cheese and tubes of kaviar. Its true: your ideas are as numerous and circuitous as the curls atop your head. It drives me crazy while teaching me to step back from my sometimes myopic viewpoint to consider a new way of thinking. Your family and friends are welcoming and wonderful, and I thank you all.
Thank you, Greg Johnson, for agreeing to represent me, and for so much more. You are a coach and encourager, and bullishly pushed me into this topic even when I didnt see it. You knew. And you were right.
Thank you, Denise Silvestro, for agreeing to work with co-authors who each wanted (insisted) to use a unique voice. Your editing eye is gold, even from New York amid a pandemic. Im speechless and love working with you.
To the Kensington team, all in New York, pressing on during unprecedented circumstances, I am in awe of your dedication when there were so many other more important things to worry about. Lynn Cully (publisher), Ann Pryor (publicity and marketing), Arthur Maisel (production editor), Steven Zacharius (Kensington CEO, a.k.a. the boss), and Shannon Plackis (my editor Denises assistant). I want to fly to New York and hug each of you. (Not in a weird way.)
Thank you, Daniel Amen. You have seen and called out my potential from the beginning, when you heard me give a lecture on opioid dependence and offered me a job. You even encouraged me to do a PBS special! Thats still not on this introverts list, but I did finally find my courage to start making my voice heard. You have taught me how to push myself in new directions and fight for what I want. Youve introduced me to some of the best physicians I have ever had the pleasure of working with and lent me your platform.
Thanks to my lifelong bestie, Charlotte Jensen, a talented writer and editor, who has probably been wondering how on earth I got a book deal but supported me nonetheless. My list of why I love you is long, but here I will thank you for teaching me how hard writing is for everyone (or at least pretending it is), for encouraging me to chill out, for sending memes and baby farm animal videos. Thank you for long-distance wine (whine?) dates and for being the friend who made an album with me during that short-lived yet apparently inspiring Dead Milkmen phase we went through.
Thank you to my friends. My greatest talent is being a collector of good people. (And candlesticks.) I have friends from age four, every stage of education and training, all the places Ive lived, the randoms Ive met along the way on airplanes, through social media, at Bloomingdales, and through networking or a night out on the town. Thank you for giving me ab-workout laughter, hugs, tears, life. You are as close to the feeling of a Hallmark Christmas movie Ill ever have (with the exception of Lillehammer in December, obviously). Weve walked through our share of joys as well as crises togetherdivorces, financial ruin, health scares, surgeries, losses, births, late-night studying, maybe a party or two, a board exam involving a high-rise fire and evacuation, and one involving a tornado, and seventeen seasons of Top Chef . I seriously love each one of you.
Everyone here contributed in some way to the courage it took for me to take a hammer to the glass box Ive kept myself in. Thank you.
Kjell Tore
Writing a book about life crises involves reflecting over your own life crises. The key question in the face of adversity is: Are you alone or do you have a team behind you? I want to thank the people who have been with me through thick and thin. My mother, Anne-Lise, and my children, Lars Henrik, Frida Sofie, and Benjamin, my bonus kids, Malin, Marcus, Vilde, and Frida, and my brother and sister, Grant and Alissa. Without any of them, my team would have been a much weaker side. I also want to thank my father, Job Kjell, my aunts Inger, Tordis, Liv, and my uncles Herlof, Arne, and Svein, who with their personalities and character have given me as much inspiration as other giants in my life: Socrates, Kant, and Eglantyne Jebb.
An awesome group of talented individuals is behind this publication. My co-author Jennifer is as brilliant as she is genuine. Learning to know her and her way of breaking down complexity into its elementary parts has been a transformative experience for me (it might have to do with her chemistry background and/or her obsession with Norwegian chocolate). She has a tradition of choosing a word of the year, and my word of the year when working with her on the book was Awake . We have laughed and laughed through the process of writing this book. If Jennifer and I are the co-parents of this literary creation, our agent, Greg Johnson, is the Godfather, who assigned us a mission to conceive. Our exceptional editor, Denise Silvestro, and the talented team at Kensington, including Steven Zacharius, Lynn Cully, Ann Pryor, Arthur Maisel, and Shannon Plackis, secured a safe and healthy delivery in the midst of a frightful pandemic, and Dr. Daniel Amen of Amen Clinics was the knight in shining armor.
My deepest respect and admiration goes to an incredible researcher who opened doors for me and supervised my dissertation in developmental neuropsychology, Professor Merete Glenne ie, my brothers-in-arms during my doctorate Per Normann Andersen and Eric Winther Skogli, and other inspirational co-authors on peer-reviewed articles and book chapters: Elkhonon Goldberg, Kerstin Plessen, and Jens Egeland (all professors with caring, warm, and meticulous instincts). Without these individuals sharing with me their insights into the brainbehavior interface, I would not have been able to co-author this book. Their scientific rigor and integrity are models to emulate.
A heartfelt thanks to the many patients I have had the honor of getting to know over the course of my time as a clinician both in private practice and at various hospital posts. They have taught me with their lives as their canvas the importance of understanding everyone as a supremely precious individual with a unique combination of strengths and weaknesseseach and every one of us.
A special thanks to my boss (and psychiatric nurse) at Inn-landet Hospital Trust, Marianne Fosstveit, and the many outstanding colleagues I work with, such as Kirsti Stav (psychologist), Tor Anders Andersen (psychiatric nurse), and Sonja Vatn (psychiatrist), who always have time to listen with their hearts and provide golden nuggets of advice on difficult cases at work, on life, and/or on crazy book projects (Well, you have to spend your spare time on something, dont you...). And I bow deeply in gratitude to my test assistants Pia Johnsen and Hege Ragnhildslkken, both outstanding occupational therapists helping me do my job.