Senior Investigator, Lady Davis Institute
Psychologist, Behavioral Psychotherapy and Research Unit, Psychiatry Department, Jewish General Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University
Co-Director, Adaptech Research Network
Dr. Catherine Fichten is a psychologist with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from McGill University. She a clinical psychologist with the Behavioural Psychotherapy and Research Unit of the Department of Psychiatry of the Jewish General Hospital, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, and a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Dawson College. She practices as a clinical psychologist with the Behavioral Psychotherapy and Research Unit of the Institute for Community and Family Psychiatry (ICFP), and she is a senior member of the Sleep and Aging Research Team, where she does research on issues related to insomnia, sleep apnea, nonrefreshing sleep, and chronic fatigue syndrome. She co-directs the Adaptech Research Network, a bilingual multidisciplinary research team which conducts research on higher education and disability. Dr. Fichten is the recipient of the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public or Community Service, the Prix Reconnaissance de l'Association pour la recherche au collégial (ARC), and the Prix de l'ARC pour Contribution au Développement de Carrières Scientifiques. She has been associated with the Jewish General Hospital since 1981.
She publishes extensively in both English and French with colleagues and students and currently holds grants from numerous provincial and federal funding agencies.
Major Research Activities
Dr. Fichten has two main areas of research. One is concerned with factors which help or hinder the participation of individuals with various disabilities in community life. She is interested, in particular, in the role that higher education and computer and information technologies can play in allowing individuals with a variety of disabilities to participate fully in the Canadian mainstream. The second concerns sleep, insomnia, and sleep related aspects of behavioural medicine and health psychology. Her work has focused on determinants and treatments of insomnia and various other primary sleep disorders and on sleep and daytime functioning in chronic fatigue syndrome.
She holds grants from the following funding organizations: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC); Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC); St. Mary’s Hospital Center; Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR); Programme d'aide à la recherche sur l'enseignement et l'apprentissage (PAREA); and the Canada/Quebec Entente.
Recent Publications
Bailes, S., Baltzan, M., Rizzo, D., Fichten, C.S, Grad, R., Wolkove, N., Creti, L., Amsel, R., & Libman, E. (2009). Sleep disorder symptoms are common and unspoken in Canadian general practice. Family Practice, 26, 294-300. doi: 10.1093/fampra/cmp031. Selected for inclusion in Family MD.
Creti, L., Libman, E., Baltzan, M., Rizzo, D., Bailes, S., & Fichten, C. (in press). Impaired sleep in chronic fatigue syndrome: How is it best measured? Journal of Health Psychology.
Fichten, C.S. & Libman, E. (2010). Long sleepers. In M. Thorpy and M. Billiard (Eds.). Sleepiness: Causes, disorders, consequences and treatment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.