Consulting with a different approach

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Our leadership team

about

Sara Ekenstierna

Sara Ekenstierna is a psychologist, author and founder of Oakstar Invest AB, a well-established consulting organization in Sweden, and Oakstar Coaching & Consulting in Australia. She is the author of the book The Part-Whole Relation and The Therapeutic Third: Otto Rank, David Bohm and Contemporary Psychoanalysis, which will be published by Routledge this year. Sara develops cutting edge approaches to public health and personal/professional development, by integrating frontier science with psychodynamic psychology and creativity theory. She facilitates growth and inspires meaningful transformation in individuals and organizations through research, consultation, tailored workshops and dialogue groups. Her research interests include wellbeing science and prevention, mindset research, mind-body relations, and therapeutic relationships.

Background

Sara leverages two decades of experience spanning psychiatry, private practice and organizational psychology. Early in her career she worked in psychiatry and has since 2011 specialized in short-term dynamic psychotherapies, mainly through private practice through contracts with Kris- och Trauma Centrum and Region Skåne, and collaborations with several other large clinics in Sweden including INM Psykiatrisk Mottagning. Additionally, Sara is experienced in organizational psychology, with primary focus on personality assessment and development. She was employed by PAT Management from 2007 (now Alumni Global), and proceeded as a consultant for the firm through Ekenstierna Psykologkonsult. Clients included companies like Skanska AB and Swedbank.

Education

Sara is a licensed psychologist since 2009. She studied at Lund University in Sweden, was a visiting student at University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, completed a one-year fellowship (PTP) in organizational psychology, followed by an additional fellowship year in clinical psychology. She also has a PhD from University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where she was awarded a 3,5 year Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship (2021) for the study and application of relational therapy. Additionally, she has studied Gender Science at Malmo University in Sweden. Sara has undertaken continuing education and masterclasses in short-term psychotherapy models in USA, UK, and Denmark. She also has training in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) where RFT (Relational Frame Theory) grounds her INDACT and PROACT professional development programs, offered as experiential workshops since 2010. She also facilitates educational-experiential hybrid workshops, recently in collaboration with Existential-Humanistic Institute, USA (co-sponsors: KU Leuven and Instituto Europeo de Psicoterapia Humanista y Existencial) (2023) and Houston Psychoanalytic Society, USA (2025).

Engagement

Sara is the creator and host of the new podcast Bohmian Dialogues, which explores creative forms of being and how to manifest new shared realities. She was a columnist at the Swedish professional magazine Psykologtidningen. Her work is also published in Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Blog of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), and Blog of American Philosophical Association (APA). Sara is a frequent speaker on the international arena. She is a member of multiple scientific- and professional communities including Sveriges Psykologförbund; American Psychological Association (APA) including Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (SPPP) and several other APA divisions, Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), The Scientific and Medical Network, The Association of Humanistic Psychology (AHP), and International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology (ISSEP).