User:Spikesales/Colleen Long

"Dr. Colleen" redirects here. For the academic degree, see Doctor of Psychology.

Colleen F. Long (born January 26, 1980), best known as "Dr. Colleen," is an American self-help writer and professional speaker on the subjects of happiness and positive psychology. Dr. Colleen's formal training was as a psychologist. However, she became well known through her television appearances, speaking engagements, and book "Happiness in B.A.L.A.N.C.E." The first edition of Happiness in B.A.L.A.N.C.E, Long writes about enhancing relationships, persuasive communication, emotional intelligence, benevolence, gratitude, meditation, and personal challenge. She also became well known in America and internationally through promoting personal development audio programs and motivational seminars. Her seminars and self-help products featured her seven factor approach to well-being, called B.A.L.A.N.C.E. She was also widely successful in advancing the field of psychology and psychiatry by helping those in the profession with marketing and promoting their practice through the news, television, and other media.

Early life
Long was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Pamela (née Casper) and Roy Long. She grew up with one younger brother, David, in the Southeastern portion of Indiana (Clarksville) where her father was an electrical engineer and mother (a notable member of Mensa) was a computer programmer. During Long's childhood, she became active in dance, gymnastics, cheer leading, piano, theater, voice lessons, and modeling. As a young child, she was placed in the gifted children summer program and studied Chinese mandarin, art, and origami. Long attended Clarksville Senior High School in Clarksville,Indiana, where she was President of her sophomore class and Secretary of her Senior class, and was in the National Honor Society. Long was on both the varsity cheer leading and volleyball teams.

Career
Long graduated in 2001 from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. She went on to earn a master's degree in clinical psychology in 2005, and a Psy.D in clinical health psychology in 2008 at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, where her dissertation was titled "The Relationship Between Orientation and Cognitive Functional Outcome in a Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Setting" After run-ins with several faculty members, Long completed her pre-doctoral residency at Alvarado Parkway Institute in La Mesa, California, and graduated with her doctoral degree in June, 2008.

While working at Alvarado Parkway Institute, Long began researching exercise's effects on the severe and profound mentally ill population. Although only observational, her research began to show great improvements within the psychiatric population after a few brief sessions of exercise, yoga, or meditation. Long began conducting hundreds of groups within the hospital, focusing on what factors go in to contentment and well-being. Her approach became widely hailed because of its focus on the patient's strengths as opposed to the traditional view of the patient having something that is "broken" and needing to be fixed.

After graduating with her doctoral degree, Long decided not to pursue the post-doctoral hours required to obtain licensure. Although she already passed the national exam a few years before graduating, Long maintained that the post-doctoral requirement was "an archaic rule established before graduate students were given training while in school," and further stated that doing such post-doctoral work was "redundant," and a "slap in the face to already cash-strapped students who have been performing 'slave labor' for far too long."

External links

* Dr. Colleen http://www.DrColleenLong.com (official site)