Dr. Janine Canan

A trained psychiatrist and professional writer, Dr. Janine Canan has worn many hats over the course of her 30-year career. Educated at Stanford and the New York University School of Medicine, Dr. Janine Canan undertook an exhaustive study of Western psychology, from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to Melanie Klein and Margaret Mahler. She also sought out prominent Eastern spiritual teachers such as Sogyal Rinpoche and the Sufi teachers Vilayat Inayat Khan and Irina Tweedie. In addition to her numerous medical staff positions, Dr. Janine Canan has acted as a certified consultant to the Russell House Low-Fee Clinic, the Berkeley Women's Center, and the University of California Health and Medical Sciences Program. Dr. Canan's past and present professional affiliations include memberships in the Association for Humanistic Psychology, the Association of Women Psychiatrists, and the Stanford Mental Health Project. She currently owns and operates her own private holistic psychiatry practice in in Sonoma, California.

As a poet, essayist and translator, Dr. Janine Canan has published work in hundreds of journals and anthologies. Her first book of poems, Of Your Seed, was published in 1977 with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since that time, Dr. Canan has authored 18 books of poetry, translations, essays and stories. In 1989, she edited the acclaimed anthology She Rises like the Sun, which featured work from some of America's most celebrated contemporary women poets. In 2004, Dr. Canan's book Messages from Amma was named a "Best Spiritual Book" and nominated for an international Kiriyami Prize. Dr. Janine Canan's papers are permanently housed in the Special Collections library at the University of Iowa.