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Biography
 Colleen Cannon has loved a remarkable career as a psychologist, speaker, and author, since graduating from Queen's University with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1998. While she was trained in a wide breadth of clinical concerns, her passion quickly became health psychology - exploring the impact of psychological wellbeing on physical wellbeing, and vice versa. Her doctoral dissertation focused on symptoms of depression in individuals with chronic pain. In 1997 she embarked on a 12-month internship at Ottawa General Hospital (accredited by both the Canadian and American Psychological Associations). The majority of this internship focused on eating disorders, high-risk pregnancies, and living with HIV - and she continues to actively pursue similar work today.
Dr. Cannon has worked for many years with people managing chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and chronic pain. She has been the program psychologist at the Cardiac Wellness Institute of Calgary since 2004. Her work involves working within individual and group formats on topics such as motivation enhancement, depression, anxiety, stress management, goal setting, sleep, self-management, and disordered eating. She plays an active consultative and educational role for other health care providers, and supervises graduate students completing pre-doctoral placements. Dr. Cannon played a key leadership role in the Calgary Health Region's intitiative to develop a cohesive strategy for managing chronic diseases in Calgary and southern Alberta. She was instrumental in launching the Stanford Chronic Disease Self Management program in the region.
For more than 10 years, Dr. Cannon has pursued a specialized interest in disordered eating, including group and individual interventions for those with diagnosed eating disorders. However her work in health psychology quickly highlighted to her the unmet needs of a huge portion of people who describe significant distress in their relationship with food, yet do not necessarily meet diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. Dr. Cannon is thrilled to have partnered with registered dietitian Wendy Shah. Their program, Craving Change™, teaches professionals how to responsibly and effectively incorporate cognitive and behavioural strategies for a healthier relationship with food into their work with clients. They believe a stepped-care approach to addressing the overwhelming need for services for people struggling with their eating, is ideal. Please go to www.cravingchange.ca for more information.
Dr. Cannon is also co-owner of Real Change Consultants, an organization of professional speakers offering customized wellness programs, retreats, and keynote addresses to companies committed to improving their employees' wellbeing. Please go to www.realchangeconsultants.com for more information. Dr. Cannon has worked with the media in a variety of formats including print and television.
Dr. Cannon is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. She has been a member of the Academy for Eating Disorders since 1999, and is a registered psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists. She is also a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers.
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