Marina Smirnova, Ph.D.

Marina Smirnova, Ph.D.
Faculty, Department of Humanistic Psychology

"I am most grateful to walk in my calling and tend to my spiritual journey while helping others to do the same."

Marina A. Smirnova, Ph.D., serves as psychology faculty in the Department of Humanistic Psychology at Saybrook University, overseeing the specialization in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health (CSIH).

Marina Smirnova, Ph.D., says her interest in all things related to the transpersonal began in childhood while growing up on Sakhalin Island off the far northeastern coast of Russia. “My mother, my first teacher, taught music at the college level for 33 years,” she recalls. “Since my childhood, my mother has been kindling my interest in teaching, scholarship, and education.”

Throughout adolescence and adulthood, Dr. Smirnova’s passion continued to blossom, eventually leading her to the field of transpersonal psychology, the field of psychology that focuses on spiritual aspects of humanity. “What drives my interest in transpersonal psychology, intuitive healing, consciousness, spirituality, longevity, and integrative health is an embodied sense of my personal calling and destiny,” Dr. Smirnova says. “I’m fascinated by the mystical dimensions of existence and the mystery of life itself, as seen through my experiences and those of others.”

Dr. Smirnova entered the field of higher education in 2010 after many years of K-12 teaching and counseling in the U.S. and abroad. During her time as a Ph.D. student studying psychology with a transpersonal concentration, she simultaneously began teaching at community college. In addition to her Ph.D., Dr. Smirnova also completed a two-year training in holotropic breathwork, a method of breathing used in therapy to facilitate emotional healing and personal growth that Dr. Smirnova says added “integrative value” to her journey as a student and educator. She is now a certified holotropic breathwork facilitator.

Eventually, her journey as an educator brought Dr. Smirnova to Saybrook University, where she found a community of kindred spirits. “Saybook is a sui generis [of their own kind] community of world-class, leading humanistic, existential, and transpersonal scholar-practitioners who embody the values and ideals they teach. They care deeply about humanity and are committed to partaking honorably and justly in the world,” she says. “Saybrook is my intellectual and experiential family, and I am deeply grateful to belong and to contribute to Saybrook’s life, legacy, present, and future.”

On Nov. 10, 2021, Dr. Smirnova received Saybrook’s Presidential Award for Excellence. At the award ceremony, Nathan Long, Ph.D., Saybrook president, shared that Dr. Smirnova had been nominated for “excellent implementation of the best traditions and principles of transpersonal and humanistic psychology and spirituality into the field of science and psychological research and professional growing of psychologists in training.”

Just in the past 10 years, Dr. Smirnova’s contributions to the field of education and transpersonal psychology have been vast and varied. She gives frequent talks all over the country, sharing her studies and insights through presentations and workshops that cover a multitude of topics. Examples include her presentation at the 2022 annual conference of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters on cultivating creative risk-taking in online and/or hybrid classrooms; her presentation at the 25^th annual conference of the Midwest Institute for International-Intercultural Education titled “Mythopoetic and Archetypal Sensibilities in the Halls of Ivy: Considerations for International Relevance;” and her presentation at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology titled “Music of the Soul: The Art and Science of Transformative Hypnotic Relationships, Mutual Regulation, and Gene Expression Modulation.”  She was also featured in the first episode of the Saybrook Insights podcast.

Additionally, she contributed chapters to “Holistic Treatment in Mental Health: A Handbook of Practitioners’ Perspectives” related to clinical hypnosis and holotropic breathwork, as well as publishing reviews of multiple other books and collections related to topics in humanistic and transpersonal psychology, hypnosis, and neurolinguistic psychotherapy. She also contributed to the research edition translation into Russian of “TA-285-Body Insight Scale (BIS)” by Rosemarie Anderson. In the classroom, Dr. Smirnova regards embodying and centering her key personal and transpersonal values and virtues as essential to her pedagogy. “I subscribe to the phenomenon of ‘growing down,’ as described by James Hillman, with a focus on being and becoming a good ancestor and the pursuit of wisdom and wholeness,” she says. “I encourage those in my classes to maintain wholehearted commitment to ongoing growth and transformation, as well as to trust the experiential process.”

Dr. Smirnova is proud of the fulfilling work she does as a part of the Department of Humanistic Psychology at Saybrook. “The Psychology Program and CSIH Specialization at Saybrook University teaches students to mindfully witness, ardently pursue, and skillfully engage their personal and transpersonal interests from a scholar-practitioner perspective,” she says. “We encourage students in the program to approach their psychology practice with a sense of integrity, ‘response-ability’, authenticity, confidence, experiential truths, humility, diversity, and wholeness, to become practitioners who can give the most holistic and effective care to their clients.”