About
KIRSTEN CANNON, LPC-MHSP, LCMHC, CEDS, NCC
Hi, I'm Kirsten (pronounced /KEERST-in).
I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor-Mental Health Service Provider, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, Certified Eating Disorder Specialist, and National Certified Counselor who works with people who have experienced tough stuff in their life that's showing up as issues with food, body, self-image, and boundaries. My goal is to help you stop feeling like you are fighting yourself or living to measure up to impossible standards, and start encouraging you to see healing and transformation by getting back in touch with who you are.
Helping people become the most embodied, confident, and liberated versions of themselves is my life’s work.
Being a therapist is an honor and a privilege. It fills me with such joy and gratitude to watch people transform their lives into the authentic, embodied, fulfilling lives they desire. The most rewarding thing about being a therapist is seeing a person feel more secure in who they are and more at home in their body.
For too long, you have believed that there are requirements for being worthy, good enough, and lovable. You deserve a life of freedom, confidence, and joy where you know deep in your soul that you are enough, that your worth and value is unshakeable, and that you don’t exist to keep other people comfortable and happy.
You have spent a lifetime trusting everything and everyone other than yourself, and it’s time to connect with your own intuition and inner wisdom. I may be a trained therapist and highly educated on subject matter, but YOU are the expert on yourself. My hope is that through our work together, you will come to believe that and will move through life with a deep trust in yourself and your body.
My Journey to Becoming a Therapist
My own growth through personal life struggles is what helps me relate so deeply with clients.
Most notably, I am fiercely passionate about helping clients recover from eating disorders because I myself am recovered.
Growing up, I struggled a lot with feeling not good enough, out of place and misunderstood, even within my own family. I know what it's like to turn on yourself and your own body in an effort to deal with big feelings and keep yourself small and contained. For a long time, I twisted and contorted my body and my personality into versions of myself that other people wanted, trapping my spirit in a cage built of expectations, beauty standards, and the pressure to be liked.
By the time I got help, my eating disorder and I felt permanently linked, and I was certain that no one could understand me enough to help me. My therapist in treatment shared with me that she had been in my position and was now recovered from her eating disorder, so while our stories weren’t the same, she did have some insight into what I was going through. Her honesty and authenticity allowed me to finally trust someone enough to be guided through untangling myself from my eating disorder.
Not everyone needs their therapist to have firsthand lived experience with their struggles to be able to really open up and do the work, but because I needed that, I know you might need that too. I became a therapist because I wanted to be that person for someone else, to walk with others through the delicate and vulnerable therapy process the way someone walked with me.
My values
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Authenticity
If you are looking for a starched, “blank slate” type of therapist, that’s not me. There is not much space between who I am as a therapist and who I am as a person, and I will meet you with my humanity before my intellect. My personality comes through in session as it informs how I practice as a therapist. I do believe in the power of self-disclosure, when it would be for your benefit, so I may share things about myself and my experiences from time to time. You can ask me questions about myself. Sometimes I use swear words, and I love a good pop culture or media reference to help illustrate an idea.
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Depth
As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am a “details person.” I want to dive in to your story and explore everything with you as thoroughly as we possibly can. In therapy, you need to feel safe to bring all parts of yourself and be open about absolutely anything. I believe everything is relevant. There is no such thing as "too much information," so tell me everything and we can connect the dots together. I believe in a true holistic and multidisciplinary approach and I love to collaborate with physicians, PTs, dietitians, and body workers to help my clients heal their whole selves.
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Integrity
I believe that in order to be a truly effective therapist that helps you make foundational changes, I have to live the life that I am talking about you living. It is of the utmost importance to me to be a living, breathing, embodiment of what I am working to empower you to have for yourself. I am not a “do as I say, not as I do” person. I put my money where my mouth is and I practice what I preach. I hold boundaries around my time, energy, and value because it’s necessary for doing the clinical work that advocates for you to do the same.
The Official Stuff
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Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Minor in English - The University of Memphis, 2012
Master of Science in Counseling, Concentration in Clinical Mental Health - The University of Memphis, 2015
Graduate Certificate in School Counseling - The University of Memphis, 2019
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Licensed Professional Counselor- Mental Health Service Provider - Tennessee License #4755
Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor - Utah License #12554508-6004
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Certified Eating Disorder Specialist- International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals #6559
National Certified Counselor - National Board of Certified Counselors #634280
IN PROGRESS: Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), estimated completion - 2025
The Personal Stuff
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yoga, pilates, music, spending time with dogs, endless research into new topics of interest (being “moved by the Rabbit Hole-y Spirit,” as podcaster Kate Kennedy calls it), reading fiction novels, connecting with friends and loved ones, keeping notifications turned off on my phone, being in the sunshine, spending recharge time alone, seeing my therapist
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Killing Eve, Ted Lasso, Alias, Stranger Things, White Collar, Person of Interest, Law and Order: SVU, WandaVision, Schitt’s Creek
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WORK WITH ME
Therapy
Individual and couples therapy for ages 12+
In-person/in-office in Memphis, TN
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Online/virtually in Tennessee and Utah
Contact
Get in touch by email or text
(or phone call, if you must)
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Book an appointment via online scheduling 24-7