New Professorships for Art Therapy and Labor Law

Eva Paul, Juliane Melches and Nicolai Besgen teach at Alanus University.

Hans-Joachim Pieper, Rector of Alanus University, has appointed two new female professors and one professor: Eva Paul teaches as Professor of Art Therapy, her colleague Juliane Melches has held the professorship in Art Therapy with a focus on the psychological/psychotherapeutic foundations of art therapy since February. Nicolai Besgen teaches as Honorary Professor of Labor Law.

Eva Paul studied art therapy and art education at Ottersberg University of Applied Sciences as well as psychology at the University of Bremen. Since 1991, she has specialized in art therapy work with children and adolescents with psychosomatic and chronic illnesses, trauma experiences, special support needs, and giftedness. From the mid-1990s onward, she took on teaching assignments in art therapy practice fields – for example oncology, anthroposophic painting therapy, and systemic art therapy – at the University of Fine Arts in the Social Sphere, Ottersberg. Until 2019, Eva Paul worked as an art therapist and psychosocial specialist in pediatric oncology at Klinikum Bremen-Mitte and in outpatient palliative care support.

Juliane Melches studied psychology at Freie Universität Berlin as well as art therapy and fine art at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. There she was a master student of Prof. Martin Honert from 2010 to 2012. She has worked freelance as an art therapist for many years and completed further training, among other things, in Katathym Imaginative Psychotherapy, trauma therapy, and as a systemic therapist. From 2016 to 2019, she was a psychologist in juvenile forensic psychiatry at Saxon Hospital Arnsdorf. In addition, Juliane Melches teaches, among other places, at Nürtingen University of Art Therapy and the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Since 2015, she has been a supervisor for art therapists in the Saxon prison system. Melches publishes and gives lectures, for example on artistic strategies in art and therapy or art therapy in a transcultural context.

Nicolai Besgen studied law at the University of Bonn and also Italian philology and German studies. In 1997, he earned his doctorate there with a dissertation on “Membership in an Employers’ Association Without Collective Bargaining Commitment.” He has been a lawyer since 1999 and a partner in the Bonn office of the law firm MEYER-KÖRING since 2001. In addition, as a specialist in labor law, he is the author and editor of numerous works on labor law.