Kjersti Rodsmoen

Kjersti Rodsmoen is the psychiatrist who guards Katrine Bratt’s recovery while recognizing that avoiding a painful memory is not the same as being ready to face it. At the Sandviken-Klinik, she must decide whether Harry Hole’s visit will reopen the wounds of the solved Schneemann case or offer a meaningful test of how far Katrine has recovered. Her approach combines caution, professional boundaries, and a willingness to make room for a patient’s own choices.

Clinical Role and Setting

Rodsmoen works at the Sandviken-Klinik, where she accompanies a tall police officer along the corridor to meet Katrine. The rain runs down the narrow windows, beyond which the fjord and green trees appear in the unsettled weather. In this institutional setting, Rodsmoen is both a clinician responsible for a vulnerable patient and the person who decides whether an encounter with someone from the patient’s past should happen.

She recognizes the officer’s voice from his call the previous day. Katrine had been known to staff only as the patient, a designation chosen to preserve her anonymity after the murder case in which she had worked as an investigator. Rodsmoen’s account makes clear that the label protects more than a name: Katrine had suffered a relapse after the pressures of the case became too much, and returned to the psychiatric clinic where she had been treated before.

Katrine’s Relapse and Recovery

Katrine’s condition improved unexpectedly quickly, and she was discharged home. That improvement did not shield her from the public aftermath. The press continued pursuing details of the already-solved Schneemann case, and three months before Harry’s visit Katrine called Rodsmoen and asked to return to the clinic. Her request followed renewed exposure to the case, not an account of a new investigation or a fresh diagnosis.

By the time Harry arrives, Rodsmoen considers Katrine well enough that she no longer needs either the clinic or medication. Yet clinical recovery does not settle whether the visit is safe. Harry was involved in the same case, and his presence could bring back experiences Katrine had tried to put away. Rodsmoen therefore weighs her assessment of Katrine’s present condition against the possibility that the encounter itself might unsettle that progress.

Judgment About Memory and Risk

Rodsmoen has learned in her psychiatric work to rely on repression: to let certain things be sealed off and forgotten. She believes this aspect of her field is often underestimated. Her view is neither that painful memories must always be recovered nor that forgetting is merely a symptom to be corrected. In Katrine’s circumstances, the possibility of reopening what had been set aside is a real clinical risk.

At the same time, Rodsmoen considers contact with someone connected to the repressed experience a useful test of how robust a patient has become. This tension informs her decision to let Harry speak with Katrine without pretending to certainty about the outcome. Before opening the dayroom door, she limits the visit to half an hour and reminds him that the soul is vulnerable. The limit gives the meeting a defined boundary; her warning makes clear that its consequences cannot be treated as routine investigative business.

Professional Boundaries and Discretion

Rodsmoen’s discretion also governs the information she gives Harry. When he asks whether Katrine is in a usable state and whether she is taking medication, Rodsmoen answers that Katrine is ready for the conversation but refuses to disclose medication details, citing professional confidentiality. She has reason to be cautious about the meeting, but does not let that concern erase either Katrine’s privacy or her own duty to assess the risk.

Later, Rodsmoen finds Katrine sitting by the window in the rain, with an untouched cake before her and a single candle burning. A ward nurse has brought Rodsmoen a mobile phone found in Katrine’s room, although phones are prohibited. Katrine acknowledges the rule. When the phone rings, Rodsmoen hands it to her; afterward, Katrine explains that her aunt called to wish her a happy birthday.

Rodsmoen does not confiscate the phone. She tells Katrine that keeping it is acceptable so long as she does not use it, and asks her to ensure the nurse does not see it. The decision is a narrow, deliberate accommodation rather than a removal of the clinic’s rule. Alongside her guarded handling of Harry’s visit and her refusal to disclose confidential information, it shows Rodsmoen applying care through measured boundaries: protecting Katrine without treating every breach as grounds for punishment.