Betty Cannon

About Betty Cannon

Betty Cannon, Ph.D, is president and founder of the Boulder Psychotherapy Institute (BPI). She has trained therapists and worked with individuals, couples, and groups in Boulder for over 30 years. She is an internationally known author, lecturer and workshop presenter. Her book, Sartre and Psychoanalysis, is considered a classic in existential psychology. Betty is a licensed psychologist and certified Gestalt therapist. She has also trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, body-oriented psychotherapy, trauma, couples and group work. Over the past 20 years she has developed an approach called Applied Existential Psychotherapy™ at BPI. AEP interlaces the insights of contemporary existential and psychodynamic approaches with techniques inspired by Gestalt and other experiential therapies. Betty is enthusiastic about groups and offers many therapy, training, practice, process, and supervision groups. Betty holds doctorates in both literature and psychology. In addition to her book on existential psychoanalysis, she has written many book chapters and journal articles on AEP, Gestalt and existentialist therapy. She is the executive contributing editor for the section on Existential Psychoanalysis for the prestigious Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis. Betty is a member of the editorial boards of three professional journals: Sartre Studies International, Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, and Existential Analysis. She is professor emerita of the Colorado School of Mines, where she taught literature and psychology for twenty years. She is adjunct professor in the Graduate Program in Psychology at Naropa University and adjunct professor at Regis University. She is a former president of the Colorado Group Psychotherapy Society and former chair of the North American Sartre Society. She is a member of the Planning Committee of the World Congress for Existential Psychotherapy to be held in London in May of 2015.

Experience

1. Adjunct Professor

   Naropa University

   Sep 1992 — Present · Boulder, CO, US

   I teach Gestalt, Group Dynamics and Leadership, Professional Orientation, Couples Therapy, and coordinate the Group Class.

Education

• University of Alabama

  B.A., M.A., Literature

  1961 — 1965

• University of Colorado

  Ph.D.

  1967 — 1977