Dr. Eleanor Criswell-Hanna

1938 - 2024

Dr. Eleanor Criswell-Hanna
05/12/1938 - 09/19/2024
With great sadness, it is noted that Dr. Eleanor (Camp) Criswell-Hanna, leading figure in the humanistic psychology movement, passed on to the next chapter in her journey, on September 19, 2024, near her home in Northern Calif. She was age 86. Her death followed a recent series of strokes, which she weathered with the grace she displayed all her life and the support of her family and many friends and admirers.
Eleanor's formative years were spent in Jacksonville, Fla. Upon graduation from Dupont High School, she attended Purdue University, and then University of Kentucky, where she earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's degree in counseling and guidance. It was here that she met, married and later divorced psychologist-psychiatrist, Frank Criswell.
At the University of Florida, she earned her doctorate in education. While there, she met her second husband, Thomas Hanna, chair of the philosophy department. Together, the two developed a highly productive intellectual partnership. Hanna died in an automobile accident in 1990. Subsequently, she married actor Pernell Roberts. He died in 2010.
Eleanor's career has been truly remarkable, as a scholar, innovator, teacher, mentor, and healer. This is even more so considering that her accomplishments took place at a time when opportunities for women in academia were limited. Her home base through much of this was her position at Sonoma State University (SSU), where she taught beginning in 1969, and where she became Emeritus Professor of Psychology. In 1970, shortly after joining the SSU faculty, she became the founding director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now Saybrook University, Pasadena, Calif.), which has thrived over the 50 years since.
Eleanor's most distinctive work has centered on somatic education. This emphasizes the integration of mind and body for emotional and psychological healing, and grew out of her synergistic collaboration with Hanna. One of her pet interests at SSU was that of the teaching the psychology of yoga, as yoga and meditation had been long-standing personal practices of hers. Later, she developed what she called Somatic Yoga, which was a blend of hatha yoga, raja yoga, somatics, neuroscience, and psychology. She elaborated her novel approach in her published How Yoga Works: An Introduction to Somatic Yoga, which fostered a huge international following in yoga therapy. A related special interest at SSU was that of physiological psychology and biofeedback, and she authored Biofeedback and Somatics: Toward Personal Evolution. Very recently, she served as editor of Cram's Introduction to Surface Electromyography.
For decades, she was the editor of Somatics Magazine: Journal of the Bodily Arts and Science, which Hanna started. She also was director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training, through which she trained and certified Hanna Somatics practitioners all over the world. More recently, she extended her work to establish Equine and Canine Somatics.
Eleanor was preceded in death by her mother, Eleanor Lewis (Talman) David; her father, Norman H. Camp, Jr.; her second husband, Thomas Hanna; and her third husband, Pernell Roberts. She is survived by her brother, Norman 'Mike' Camp (Sydney Fleischer); her nephews, Marshall (Courtney), Lee (Eleanor) and Dean (Alex); her grandnieces, Belle and Daisy; and grandnephew, Lucien; her stepchildren, Wendell Hanna, Tad Hanna, and Mike Hanna; and Esperanza, her beloved horse.
Eleanor was knowledgeable, very charismatic, and had an enormous and devoted following. Her gentle nature, soft voice and deep love for all creatures will remain alive in their hearts.
https://www.iayt.org/members/?id=19386450
https://www.equinehannasomatics.org/
https://lumieresolutions.com/eleanor-crisswell-hanna-and-the-myth-of-ageing/
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/hum0000287