Melanie Neumann

Priv.-Doz. Dr Melanie Neumann is Head of Research at the Professorship of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy under Prof Gabriele Lutz. The activities of this professorship include research, teaching and the outpatient and inpatient care of psychosomatic patients at Herdecke Community Hospital.

The professorship focuses on research into meaning and psychotherapy research in the context of questions of meaning with the guiding research question of how the experience of meaning can be promoted in patients and citizens. 
Priv.-Doz. Dr Neumann leads the research activities in this area, which focuses on the following topics from different perspectives using qualitative methods:

• Dealing with questions of meaning in outpatient psychotherapy from the perspective of
  • patients
  • Psychological psychotherapists (with and without further training in existential psychotherapy or existential topics)
  • Transpersonal/spiritually-orientated (psycho)therapists
  • Psychotherapists in training
• Dealing with questions of meaning in chronically somatically ill patients from the perspective of inpatient and practising physicians
• Dealing with issues of meaning in the psychosocial care of the dying from the perspective of hospice workers and hospital chaplains
• Changing the experience of meaning through near-death experiences
• Spirituality and its influence on finding meaning after stressful life events
• Cultural differences in the experience of meaning from the perspective of German WEIRD and Turkish non-WEIRD respondents
   

Bachelor's, Master's and doctoral theses are offered in these subject areas.
 

Since 01/2023
Head of Research at the Professorship of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University

2019 - 2023
Head of Research at the Chair of Education, Training and Continuing Education in Anthroposophic Medicine, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University

Since 2013
Associate of the Faculty of Health and member of the Institute for Integrative Medicine (IfIM), Witten/Herdecke University

2013 - 2023
Freelance psychotherapist according to the Alternative Practitioners Act

2009 - 2013
Research assistant, Gerhard Kienle Chair of Medical Theory, Integrative and Anthroposophic Medicine, IBAM, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University

2013 
Postdoctoral university lecturing qualification at the Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University
Topic: "The Theory, Methodology, Health Outcomes and Influence Factors of Physician Empathy" (cumulative), teaching authorisation in the field of medical psychology

2003 - 2009
Research assistant at the Centre for Health Care Research Cologne (ZVFK), Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne

2008
Doctoral studies for the degree of Doctor rerum medicinalium, Centre for Health Care Research Cologne (ZVFK), Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne
Topic: "Medical empathy: measurement, determinants and patient-reported outcomes - an explorative cross-sectional study from the perspective of patients with bronchial, oesophageal, colorectal, breast, prostate and skin cancer" (cumulative)

2002 - 2003
Research assistant in the field of Human Resources, Centre for Hospital Management (CKM), Institute of the Bertelsmann Foundation at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

2000 - 2002
Personnel consultant, ConEnergy AG, Essen

1994 - 1999
Degree in Sociology, University of Bielefeld, minor subject Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Diploma thesis on "The relationship between job satisfaction and employee orientation using the example of nursing services in Bielefeld"

1998
Training as a nursing assistant, Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB), Cologne
 

• Sensory experience and spirituality
• Sensory experience and near-death experience