Research Interests

Inquiry into the nature of embodiment throughout the life span

Biography

Theresa Silow, Ph.D., LPCC, Professor and Core Faculty, PhD in Psychology with a Concentration in Somatic Psychology. Theresa joined CIIS in 2015 after teaching for 11 years in the Somatic Psychology Program at JFK University. Theresa, a native of Germany, received her education in Social Work at the Catholic University of Social Sciences in Munich. She holds a PhD from The Ohio State University in Somatic Studies. Theresa is a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), an ISMETA Registered Somatic Movement Educator (RSME) and Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT). Theresa maintains a somatic-based private psychotherapy practice in Santa Rosa, California. She integrates somatic, developmental, attachment, psychoanalytic, and trauma theories and practices in her clinical work. Theresa’s somatic perspective is informed by her studies with Anna Halprin, Emilie Conrad, and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. She continues to research various aspects of early movement development and their significance for the development of a sense of self. She also explores developmental movement patterns as pathways to deepen embodiment throughout the life span.

Education

PhD, The Ohio State University 

MSW, Catholic University of Social Sciences, Munich, Germany

Awards & Distinctions

2008 Academic Achievement: Best Paper in the category of Upper-Right Quadrant, Embodiment an Ascending and Descending Development, Integral Theory Conference, JFK University, Pleasant Hill, California

2000 Virginia Grama Schmidt and Hubert Conrad Schmidt Scholarship for Somatic Studies, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1978 – 1979 Fulbright Scholarship, The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio

Courses

Further Reaches of Somatics/Somatic Psychology Spiritual Traditions of Embodied Practice Praxis III and IV

Publications

Freedman, A.*, Silow, T., Gold, S., Pope, T., & Saint Arnault, D., *co-first authors, (2022). The somatic post-encounter clinical summary (SPECS), A new instrument for practitioners and researchers to measure the wisdom of somatic intelligence. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 2022 21:1

Silow, T. (2015) Verborgen in unserem Körper: Das Potenzial der Bewegungsentwicklung. (Hidden in our Body: The Potential of Developmental Movements). Shiatsu Journal, 80/2015, 17-21.

Silow, T. (2011) An Interior and Exterior View of ‘Body.” Journal of Integral Theory and Practice: A Postdisciplinary Discourse for Global Action, September 2011, 6(3), 58-74.

Mehling E. W., Wrubel J., Daubenmeier J. J., Price C. J., Kerr C. E., Silow T., Gopisetty V., Stewart A. L. (2011) Body Awareness: a phenomenological inquiry into the common ground of mind-body therapies. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 2011 6:6

Silow, T. (2010) Embodiment, an Ascending and Descending Development. In S. Esbjorn-Hargens, Integral Theory in Action: Applied Theoretical, and Critical Perspectives on the AQAL Model.

Silow, T. (2002) Somatics and David Bohm’s Theory of Wholeness: Valuable Linkages. Somatics: Magazine-Journal of the Bodily Arts and Sciences, 2002, 13(3), 14-18.