SPEAKERS

A renowned speaker, and bestselling author.

Gabor Maté

Gabor Maté (pronunciation: GAH-bor MAH-tay) is a retired physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in thirty languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. His book on addiction received the Hubert Evans Prize for literary non-fiction. For his groundbreaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. His books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; When the Body Says No; The Cost of Hidden Stress; Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder; and (with Gordon Neufeld) Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. His next book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture will be published on September 13, 2022 and is available to pre-order now.

Distinguished University Scientist/Professor, Polyvagal Theory Neuroscientist and Action Trauma Network Ambassador

Stephen Porges

Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D. is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award.

He has published approximately 400 peer‐reviewed scientific papers across several disciplines that have been cited in more than 45,000 peer-reviewed papers. He holds several patents involved in monitoring and regulating autonomic state. He is the originator of the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral, mental, and health problems related to traumatic experiences. He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation (Norton, 2011), The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe, (Norton, 2017), Polyvagal Safety: Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation (Norton, 2021), and co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (Norton, 2018).

He is the creator of a music-based intervention, the Safe and Sound Protocol™, which currently is used by more than 2000 therapists to improve spontaneous social engagement, to reduce hearing sensitivities, and to improve language processing, state regulation, and spontaneous social engagement.

Psychiatry Professor, Harris-Woodman Chair at Western University of Canada, Director of the Clinical Research Program for PTSD

Ruth A. Lanius, M.D., Ph.D

Ruth A. Lanius, M.D., Ph.D. is a Psychiatry Professor and Harris-Woodman Chair at Western University of Canada, where she is the director of the Clinical Research Program for PTSD.
Ruth has over 25 years of clinical and research experience with trauma-related disorders. She established the Traumatic Stress Service at London Health Sciences Center, a program that specializes in the treatment of psychological trauma. Ruth has received numerous research and teaching awards, including the Banting Award for Military Health Research. She has published
over 150 research articles and book chapters focusing on brain adaptations to psychological trauma and novel adjunct treatments for PTSD. Ruth regularly lectures on the topic of psychological trauma both nationally and internationally. Ruth has co-authored two books: The Effects of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic and Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience, Treatment. Ruth is a passionate clinician scientist who endeavours to understand the first-person experience of traumatized individuals throughout treatment and how it relates to brain functioning.

Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project

Fritzi Horstman

Fritzi Horstman is the Founder and Executive Director of the Compassion Prison Project, an organization dedicated to creating trauma-informed prisons and communities. The first day Fritzi stepped inside a maximum security prison she realized it was actually a trauma center. She knew at that moment something needed to be done to change the system so she produced and directed the now viral video “Step Inside the Circle” with 235 incarcerated men addressing their Adverse Childhood Experiences. Currently, she is creating a 12-part video series about childhood trauma to be distributed to every prison across the U.S. and abroad. Fritzi has also produced HBO’s “The Defiant Ones” directed by Allen Hughes which has garnered several awards including a Grammy for Best Music Film. Her first feature, “Take A Number,” which she wrote, produced, and directed, debuted at the Slamdance festival and premiered on HBO. Fritzi studied at New York University’s summer film program and received a Bachelor of Arts in Film and English from Vassar College.

Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Author

Dan Siegel

Dr. Siegel is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organisation, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. Dr. Siegel has published extensively for the professional audience and has been utilised by a number of clinical and research organisations worldwide.

Clinician, Consultant, Founding member of Polyvagal Institute

Deb Dana

Deb Dana, LCSW is a clinician, consultant, and author who lectures internationally on ways in which Polyvagal Theory informs work with trauma survivors. 

She is a founding member of the Polyvagal Institute, consultant to Khiron Clinics and advisor to Unyte – and developer of the signature Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series. Deb is well known for translating Polyvagal Theory into a language and application that is both understandable and accessible – for clinicians and curious people alike.  Her publications include The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Norton, 2018); Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered Practices (Norton, 2020); and Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory (Sounds True, 2021).

Deb can be contacted via her website. Click the link below.

Scientist, Professor, Author, Speaker

Sue Carter

C. Sue Carter, PhD is Distinguished University Scientist and Director Emerita of the Kinsey Institute and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University Bloomington and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she co-directed the Brain-Body Center in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Carter is past president of the International Behavioural Neuroscience Society and holds fellow status in that Society and in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Award. She has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and edited 5 books Dr. Carter is the scientist, who discovered the relationship between social behaviour and oxytocin. Her work examines how oxytocin pathways are at the centre of physiological systems that enable human sociality.

Professor, Clinical Psychologist, Lecturer and Therapist

Janina Fisher

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a Board member of the Trauma Research Foundation, a patron of the John Bowlby Centre, and a former instructor, Harvard Medical School.  An international expert on the treatment of trauma, she is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015) and author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017) and Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (2021).  She is best known for her work on integrating newer neurobiologically-informed interventions into traditional psychotherapy approaches.   More information can be found on her website: www.janinafisher.com.  

Psychologist and Consultant

Lisa Schwarz

Lisa Schwarz is a licensed psychologist, she developed ‘The Comprehensive Resource Model’, a trauma therapy model that employs brain-based physiological safety as the foundation for healing.
Lisa has been dedicated to innovative methods for severe dissociative disorders (Complex PTSD, DID, DDNOS), attachment disorders, and gestational trauma.Her work bridges neuroscience and consciousness in trauma healing through a combination of traditional psychotherapy, somatic therapy, and indigenous healing methods.Lisa Schwarz is a certified practitioner of Colin Ross’s Trauma Model and Robert Schrei’s Source Point therapy. She is trained in Usui Reiki, transpersonal psychology and has studied the breathwork and somatic concepts of Richard Brown, MD, Jeremy Youst, and Barbara Barnett.

Creator of Therapeutic Coaching and the founder and CEO of The Optimum Health Clinic (OHC)

Alex Howard

Alex Howard is an author, therapist and entrepreneur with a passion for bold projects that help make the world a better place. Alex’s first book, WHY ME? My Journey from ME to Health and Happiness was published in 2003, and his latest book will be published by Hay House in May 2021.

Alex is the Founder and CEO of The Optimum Health Clinic (OHC), one of the world’s leading integrative medicine clinics with a team of 20 full time practitioners supporting thousands of patients in 50+ countries. Alex and the research team at OHC have published research in a number of leading journals, including British Medical Journal Open, Medical Hypotheses and Psychology and Health. A randomised controlled trial on the OHC approach has NHS ethics approval and is currently underway in the UK.

Along with founding and leading the OHC practitioner teams for the past 17 years, Alex Howard is an immensely experienced psychology practitioner, having delivered over 10,000 consultations. He has also led the Therapeutic Coaching practitioner programme since 2005, training the next generation of psychology practitioners. Since March 2020, Alex has been documenting his therapeutic work with real life patients via his In Therapy with Alex Howard YouTube Series.

In 2015, Alex founded leading online video platform Conscious Life, which has produced programmes with over 150 teachers, including Byron Katie, Marianne Williamson, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and Ken Wilber. In the last few years, Alex has created two of the largest online conferences in the health and mind-body markets, the Fatigue Super Conference has been attended by 75,000 people and the Trauma & Mind Body Super Conference by 185,000.

Somatic Educator, Restorative Justice Advocate & Speaker

Marlee Liss

Marlee Liss (she/her) is a somatic educator, award-winning speaker, author, social worker and lesbian Jewish feminist. She made history in the justice system when her sexual assault case became the 1st in North America to conclude with restorative justice through the courts. Since then, she has coached thousands of women and non-binary folk in healing shame and transforming trauma. Marlee’s work has been featured in Forbes, Huff Post, Buzzfeed, the Mel Robbins Show and more. As an award-winning speaker, she’s delivered talks for: The US Military SAPRO, Vanderbilt University, University of Toronto, Trauma & Recovery Conference, Women’s Mental Health Conference at Yale and more. Marlee was 1 of 25 survivors on an elite panel for the National Action Plan to End Gender Based Violence informing federal policy and her story is currently being made into a documentary directed by Kelsey Darragh. 

CEO & Co-Founder of the Mindsight Institute

Caroline Welch

Caroline Welch is the CEO and Co-founder, with Dr. Dan Siegel, of the Mindsight Institute in Santa Monica, California. Welch has served as a Los Angeles County court-appointed mediator, as well as in- house counsel at MGM Studios and Spelling Entertainment Group. She began her mindfulness practice forty years ago while working in Japan as an English teacher. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School with a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, she started her career in law as a corporate litigator.Welch provides lectures and workshops on anti-sexism, antiracism, and well-being in our personal and professional lives.

Internationally recognized breathing/movement specialist and best-selling author

Betsy Polatin

Internationally recognized breathing/movement specialist and best-selling author, Betsy Polatin, MFA, SEP, has been teaching for more than forty-five years and is currently a master lecturer at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. Her background includes many years of movement education and performance, as well as training in the Alexander Technique, music, dance, yoga, meditation, trauma resolution, and the broader healing arts. Her work is greatly influenced by the teachings of Spiritual and Meditation Masters.

Betsy leads international trainings where she presents her unique and revolutionary fusion of ideas: scientific knowledge combined with ancient wisdom and intuitive human creativity. Since 2016, she has been co-teaching  “Trauma and the Performing Artist” with Peter A. Levine, PhD. She also teaches “the Wisdom of Trauma,” with Dr. Gabor Maté. Betsy is the author of the best-seller, HUMANUAL, an Epic Journey to your Expanded Self, and The Actor’s Secret. As a well-known educator, she has published numerous articles in the Huffington Post. She maintains a private practice online internationally. Please visit: HUMANUAL.com

Writer, Therapist and Lecturer

Judith Prager

Judith Simon Prager, PhD, is a writer, therapist, lecturer, and award-winning instructor in the UCLA X Writers’ Program. She has trained physicians, nurses, first responders, and counsellors in the protocol she co-developed called Verbal First Aid™, lecturing across the United States and around the world. Her books include The Worst Is Over: What to Say When Every Moment Counts (co-authored with Judith Acosta, LISW), and her latest, What The Dolphin Said.

Psychotherapist, Author, Consultant

Felicity De Zulueta

Felicity de Zulueta is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, who specialises in trauma and attachment patterns. Dr. de Zulueta developed and headed the Traumatic Stress Service at the Maudsley Hospital in London, where she is the Emeritus Consultant Physician. Dr Felicity is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Traumatic Studies at Kings College London.

She developed and headed both the Department of Psychotherapy at Charing Cross Hospital and the Traumatic Stress Service in the Maudsley Hospital which specialises in the treatment of people suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress disorder. She has trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, systemic family therapy, group analysis, EMDR and Lifespan Integration. She has published papers on the subject of bilingualism and PTSD from an attachment perspective and is author of the book From Pain to Violence; the traumatic roots of destructiveness. She works as a freelance consultant psychotherapist.

Consultant Psychiatrist and founder of the Mirabilis Health Institute

Paul Miller

Prof Paul W. Miller, MD MB BCh BAO DMH MRCPsych FRSA, is an author, Consultant Psychiatrist and founder of the Mirabilis Health Institute; an EMDR Europe Accredited Trainer and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at Ulster University. His humanitarian work has supported projects on the Island of Ireland, as well as in Myanmar, Northern Iraq and he is currently focused upon trauma capacity building for Ukraine.

Mentor Training Coordinator Lighthouse Charity

Gary Symington

Project Lead – Lighthouse Charity 

Gary Symington grew up in West Belfast where he worked as a youth worker for 18 years.  He joined Lighthouse in 2011, a community based charity providing support for those bereaved by suicide as well as services for those in emotional crisis.   

He has worked with thousands of young people throughout Belfast and beyond, which has been a privilege.  As Projects Lead for the Ask Twice Project Gary provides group work in Belfast secondary schools, working with young people presenting with emotional health concerns.  This work is delivered in partnership with his colleague Sinead McIlvenna, where they integrate the skills of youth work and counselling.  Outside work Gary has a keen interest in classic cars and spends most weekends with his wife, son and daughter who both play football.   

Survivor, Coach, Mentor, Speaker, Author

Ronia Fraser

Ronia Fraser is an internationally renowned and multi-award-winning Trauma Recovery Coach & Clinical Hypnotherapist and one of the leading experts in the field of Narcissistic Abuse Recovery. Since 2017 she’s been helping abuse survivors from all over the world get back on their feet, regain their mental health and recover who they were always meant to be. 

Website: Ronia Fraser | Award-Winning Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Coaching 

Dr. Mariel Buqué is an Afro-Dominican, Columbia University-trained Psychologist, intergenerational trauma expert, and the author of the book Break the Cycle

Dr. Mariel Buqué

Dr. Mariel Buqué is an Afro-Dominican, Columbia University-trained Psychologist, intergenerational trauma expert, and the author of the book Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma. Her clinical framework is holistic and infuses ancient and indigenous healing practices into a modern, comprehensive therapeutic approach. During her clinical training, she co-developed and completed a 3-year immersive holistic mental health care fellowship in collaboration with the United States Health Administration and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she offered holistic psychotherapy, in the Spanish language, across multidisciplinary clinics in the Columbia hospital system, including cardiology, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, and primary care.

She has utilized her training in holistic care to integrate holistic practices, like sound bath meditation and breathwork, into therapy, which has helped to deepen trauma healing for her clients. She additionally provides healing workshops to Fortune 100 companies including Google, Twitter, Capital One, and Meta and lectures within the psychology department of Columbia University. Dr. Buqué is widely sought out for her clinical expertise and trauma approach and has been featured on major media outlets including The Today Show, Good Morning America, and ABC News. During her doctoral training and then within her clinical position as a psychologist at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, Dr. Buqué was able to see the profound impact of intergenerational trauma, which led to her adopting a more holistic lens to healing layered trauma. This is now the underlying methodology behind her proprietary intergenerational healing approach. Dr. Buqué now makes her healing practices accessible through her book Break the Cycle, her newsletter, and a growing community on social media. As such, she has been named as a School of Greatness 100 Greatest People Doing Good in 2022 and an inaugural Verywell Mind 25 Mental Health Champion.

Her book can be found at https://sites.prh.com/breakthecyclebook.

Dr. Aimie Apigian

Dr. Aimie Apigian is a double Board-Certified Physician, boarded in both Preventive and Addiction Medicine with Double Master’s degrees in Biochemistry and Public Health. She graduated from Loma Linda University in 2010 with her medical degree where she then went on to 3.5 years of general surgery residency.     

Having been a foster mom and then adoptive mom, she had personal experience with trauma in her home and then non-profit working with other adoptive families and their children until trauma became her own personal story with her body giving in during her surgery residency training.  Through all of these life experiences, she has discovered that life experiences become one’s biology and that trauma is more than our psychology.  It requires a specific process and a holistic integrative approach for addressing stored trauma in the body.  She left her thriving conventional addiction medicine practice, is a certified functional medicine physician, and has numerous trainings and certifications in functional medicine, mental health, addiction, and trauma therapy modalities.  Seeing the huge gap in both medicine and mental health for addressing stored trauma and its effects on the body, her mission is now to help 1 million people accelerate their trauma healing journey by addressing the Biology of Trauma, and bringing the model of the Biology of Trauma to every medical and mental health educational system by the year 2041.  

She does this through her business, Trauma Healing Accelerated, her podcast, The Biology of Trauma with 130,000 downloads, an active YouTube channel, free Masterclasses, her annual Biology of Trauma Summits with almost 200,000 registrations, but ultimately inviting people to her educational and experiential courses for individuals and her professional certificate training program. 

Irene Lyon

Irene Lyon, MSC. and nervous system expert, teaches people around the world how to work with the nervous system to transform trauma, heal body and mind, and live full, creative lives. To date, her online programs and classes have reached over 9,500 people in over 90 countries. Irene has a Master’s Degree in Biomedical and Health Science and also has a knack for making complex info easy for ALL of us to understand and apply to our lives. She has extensively studied and practices the works of Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais, Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing) and Kathy Kain (founder of Somatic Practice). Irene spends her free time eating delicious food, hiking in the mountains or walking along the Pacific Ocean in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.