Ph.D.

​

Judith Greer Essex is the Founder and Director of the Expressive Arts Institute, San Diego, which, since 1998 with her partner David Wes Chester, has been a cooperating Institute for the EGS. A Registered Expressive Arts Therapist and Licensed Marriage and Family therapist, Judith was for many years a member of the Academy of Dance Therapist Registered with a Master's Degree from UCLA in Dance Therapy. She is a specialist in the language and social meaning of the body, dance therapy and improvisational performance. She created courses at several universities and theater conservatories, including the San Diego Repertory Theater Conservatory, where she developed a course on physical imagination. She brings the concept of embodied consciousness to life at the San Diego Institut.

​

At EGS Judith has taught the Advanced Training course many times and proctored the Thesis defence. When, in 2005 she was the Artist-in-Residence she performed a one woman show "Red Moon" and loves to put improvisational structures on dancers with all levels of experience. Her dissertation "Dionysos and the Shaman" is a hermeneutic research of the guiding metaphors for practice of Expressive Arts Therapy.