Niels Peter Rygaard

I am a clinical psychologist. I work with attachment and attachment difficulties, adoption, early intervention, and efforts against sexual abuse. I also work with leadership development and with the organisation of social work in schools, children's homes and day care.

I trained as a psychologist at Aarhus University. Since 1994 I have practised as a clinical psychologist. I am co-founder and CEO of Fonden Fairstart, where my work is programme development and research, as a clinical child psychologist. Fairstart is an international six-month training course for professionals who work with children. I wrote Severe Attachment Disorder in Childhood, later published in 12 languages, and I co-wrote Kort & godt om tilknytning. I received the Danish Adoption Award in 2012 and the American Psychological Association's Award for International Humanitarian Work in 2020.

I work part time and meet people in person in Aarhus, at N P Rådgivning and Key2see. An appointment can be found within two weeks. I developed milieu therapy supplemented with individual therapy, and I created a setting where the condition of the staff was as important as the children's. I came to see that we needed to work with the whole organisation, not only with the children who had lacked care. I offer development programmes for schools, children's homes and day care, and I offer leadership development.