Dr. Andreas Heißel

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educational commitment

biography

Andreas Heißel is Senior Research Fellow at the Professorship for Social and Preventive Medicine at the Department for Sports and Health Sciences at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He studied sports, political, and educational science in Potsdam, Berlin and Sydney. PhD in sports psychology, first at the Humboldt University Berlin (2010-2013), graduated in 2013 at the University of Potsdam about obese children coached by exercise professionals trained in need support.

2006-2009 athletics and rehabilitation coach for first league and junior national teams in volleyball (2007 winning of the gold medal, European Junior Championships). 2010-2022 he was director at the location in the Sportforum of the Sport- and Health Park Berlin/ Centre for Sports Medicine (8000 exercising clients/ patients; 6000 sports medical examinations including 3000 top athletes per year) and is now CRO there. He worked in practice for over 20 years with patients, athletes, supervising and leading a team of more than 30 exercise professionals and has 17 years of clinical experience. As a spin-off from the University of Potsdam, he founded the Centre for Emotional Health Germany with the aim of implementing the www.step-therapie.de in the healthcare sector.

Dr. Heißel has attained over € 2.5M in research funding, including grants from the innovations fund. He supervised more than 10 PhD students graduated in sport or health science, psychology and medicine.

 research interests / teaching

Andreas research interests focus on mental/ emotional health and health education (basic psychological needs/ motivation, depression, anxiety, chronic pain), physical activity, exercise, mindfulness, and meditation.

He led the STEP.De study (Exercise therapy for depression) with Prof. Rapp (PI evaluation), in which he was the main PI and developed the psychological training of the health professionals and the specific exercise therapy, and the SPeED study (with Prof. Heinzel) (Neurobiological Mechanisms of Sport and Psychotherapy in Depression) as well as other studies.

He teaches mind-body methods, sports therapy in health sports and psychiatry, methods of systematic reviews in Bachelor's, Master's and PhD programmes.