Eleanor Criswell Library

Eleanor Criswell, EdD, was a core faculty member at Meridian University for over 30 years and served on the University's Board of Trustees as Vice Chair. She was also the editor of Somatics Magazine and Director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training. An Emeritus Professor of Psychology and former Chair of the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, Eleanor was the founding director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now Saybrook University), where she was a Distinguished Consulting Faculty member for many years.

Eleanor's books include Biofeedback and Somatics: Toward Personal Evolution; How Yoga Works: An Introduction to Somatic Yoga, and she was editor of Cram's Introduction to Surface Electromyography. Criswell was a past president of Division 32 — Society of Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and as well was president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology Association, the Biofeedback Society of California, and the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She was also president of the Somatics Society. A licensed psychologist, certified biofeedback practitioner, and somatic educator, Eleanor's somatics discipline was rooted in Hanna Somatics. She taught yoga beginning in 1967 and was the creator of Somatic Yoga and Equine Hanna Somatics.