Dr. Kanner established her licensed private practice in 1982 after completing her doctoral program at Fordham University and gaining clinical and supervisory experience in New York State's mental-health system. She is proficient in multiple approaches to therapy, including psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral. She integrates significant Freudian insights regarding the effects of a patient's history on their personality with the best elements of cognitive-behavioral and its emphasis on practical steps to improve the patient's life. She focuses on helping patients attain symptom relief as soon as clinically possible.
Dr. Kanner's practice is focused primarily on adults, although she has successfully treated children as young as five. Her practice has always included a significant percentage of patients in their teens and twenties. She is experienced in helping patients with problems associated with aging parents. She has specialized training in hypnosis and the trauma-relief technique known as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming). She suggests those therapies when she feels they would be beneficial.
Dr. Kanner’s hospital experience brings to her therapeutic approach an awareness of the potential complicating organic problems that can mimic or worsen psychological symptoms. Dr. Kanner has helped patients cope with the psychological stresses of many types of physical disorders, including cancer, leukemia, emphysema, Parkinson's Disease, migraine headaches, back pain and other chronic-pain conditions. Often, with patients' permission, she consults with their physicians about any medical problems that may be relevant to their therapy. She has a broad knowledge of psychotropic medications and often consults with psychiatrists and other medical doctors when medications are indicated.
Dr. Kanner graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972 from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was honored by the National Institute of Mental Health with a full scholarship for her graduate education in psychology. She earned her master's degree in clinical psychology in 1974 from Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology in 1980 from Fordham. The National Institute of Mental Health also funded her internship at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, in 1975 and 1976.
Beginning in 1980, Dr. Kanner worked as a staff psychologist in the admissions unit of New York State's Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Kings Park, Long Island. She was appointed team leader of the facility's 14-member outpatient staff and ran the hospital's community outpatient clinic serving 250 patients in Huntington.
After fulfilling the state's requirements for post-doctoral experience, she passed the state licensing examination in 1982, allowing her to practice independently. She left the hospital in 1983 for full-time private practice. A member of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Kanner has kept up to date in her field through workshops at Harvard University School of Medicine, Albert Einstein School of Medicine, Columbia University School of Physicians and Surgeons and New York Institute for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies.
