Linda A. Curran, BCPC, LPC, CACD, CCDPD, EMDR Level II Trained, is president of Integrative Trauma Treatment, LLC in Havertown, PA. She provides clients an integrative approach to trauma, and treats PTSD in adolescent and adult populations, including clients with eating disorders, sexual trauma, and self-injury. An international speaker on the treatment of trauma, Linda has developed, produced, and presents multi-media workshops on all aspects of psychological trauma.

Linda is the author of the best-selling Trauma Competency: A Clinician's Guide (PESI, 2010) and 101 Trauma-Informed Interventions: Activities, Exercises and Assignments to Move the Client and Therapy Forward (PESI, 2013). She is the producer of the best-selling Interview Trauma DVD series in which she collaborated with the world's leaders in Trauma: Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.; Peter Levine, Ph.D.; Babette Rothschild, MSW, LCS; Stephen Porges, Ph.D.; Janina Fisher, Ph.D.; and many more.

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Linda Curran maintains a private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

Nonfinancial: Linda Curran has no relevant nonfinancial relationship to disclose.

Gabor Maté M.D. is a physician and best-selling author whose books have been published in twenty languages internationally. His interests include child development, the mind-body unity in health and illness, and the treatment of addictions. Gabor has worked in palliative care and as a family physician, and for fourteen years practiced addiction medicine in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. As a speaker he regularly addresses professional and lay audiences throughout North America. He is the recipient of a number of awards, including a Simon Fraser University Outstanding Alumnus Award and an honourary degree from the University of Northern British Columbia. His most recent book, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction, won the Hubert Evans Prize for literary nonfiction. He is Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Criminology, Simon Fraser University.

Bessel A. Van der Kolk, M.D., is a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of post-traumatic stress.  His work integrates developmental, neurobiological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment.

Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development, memory, and the psychobiology of trauma.  He has published over 150 peer reviewed scientific articles on such diverse topics as neuroimaging, self-injury, memory, neurofeedback, Developmental Trauma, yoga, theater and EMDR. 

He is founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts.  The Trauma Center consists of a well-trained clinical team specializing in the treatment of children and adults with histories of child maltreatment, that applies treatment models that are widely taught and implemented nationwide.  He also created the Trauma Research Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Trauma Center, that is organized to promote clinical, scientific and educational projects.

His most recent 2014 New York Times best seller, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Treatment of Trauma, transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring – specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust.  He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, somatically based therapies, EMDR, psychodrama, play, yoga, and other therapies.

Dr. van der Kolk is the past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School.  He regularly teaches at conferences, universities, and hospitals around the world.

James W. Hopper, Ph.D., Independent consultant and instructor in psychology, Cambridge Health Alliance & Harvard Medical School. Co-editor, Mindfulness-oriented interventions for trauma: Integrating contemplative practices. The MDMA Team, Trauma Research Foundation.

Lance Dodes, M.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst with the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is Chair of the annual discussion group The Patient with Addiction in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at the winter meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Dodes has been honored by the Division on Addictions at Harvard Medical School for "Distinguished Contribution" to the study and treatment of addictive behavior.

Lisa Ferentz, LCSW-C, DAPA, is a recognized expert in the strengths-based, de-pathologized treatment of trauma and has been in private practice for over 35 years. She presents workshops and keynote addresses nationally and internationally, and is a clinical consultant to practitioners and mental health agencies in the United States, Canada, the UK and Ireland.

She has been an adjunct faculty member at several Universities, and is the Founder of “The Ferentz Institute,” now in its 11th year of providing continuing education to mental health professionals and graduating over 1,200 clinicians from her two certificate programs in Advanced Trauma Treatment.

In 2009 she was voted the “Social Worker of Year” by the Maryland Society for Clinical Social Work. Lisa is the author of Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors: A Clinician’s Guide, 2nd Edition (Routledge, 2014), Letting Go of Self-Destructive Behaviors: A Workbook of Hope and Healing (Routledge, 2014), and Finding Your Ruby Slippers: Transformative Life Lessons From the Therapist’s Couch (PESI, 2017). Lisa also hosted a weekly radio talk show, writes blogs and articles for websites on self-harm and self-care, and teaches on many webinars.

Mary Lou is a clinical psychologist, working with individuals and couples and supervising therapists in her Bala Cynwyd, PA, practice. She received her PhD in Psychology from Temple University and has been training therapists in experiential methods for more than 30 years. She herself trained in Gestalt Therapy with James Simkin, Isadore From, Laura Perls, and Erving and Miriam Polster. She is, with the late Joyce Lewis, one of the founders of GTIP. Mary Lou's current areas of theoretical interest include mutuality and connection in relationships, the experience of time, scapegoating phenomena, body/mind functioning, forgiveness, and the healing of early psychological wounds.

Lane Pederson Psy.D, LP, has provided Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) training and consultation to over 10,000 professionals in the United States, Australia, South Africa, Dubai, Canada, and Mexico through his training and consultation company, Lane Pederson and Associates, LLC .  A real world practitioner, Dr. Pederson co-owns Mental Health Systems, PC (MHS), one of the largest DBT-specialized practices in the United States with four clinic locations in Minnesota . At MHS Dr. Pederson has developed DBT programs for adolescents, adults, people with dual disorders, and people with developmental disabilities.  He has served as clinical and training directors, has directed practice-based clinical outcome studies, and has overseen the care of thousands of clients in need of intensive outpatient services.

Dr. Pederson’s DBT publications include The Expanded Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Manual, 2nd Edition: DBT for Self-Help and Individual & Group Treatment Settings  (PESI, 2017); Dialectical Behavior Therapy: A Contemporary Guide for Practitioners (Wiley, 2015); Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training for Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment Settings (PESI, 2013) and The DBT Deck for Clients and Therapists: 101 Mindful Practices to Manage Distress, Regulate Emotions & Build Better Relationships (PESI, 2019).

Notable organizations he has trained for include Walter Reed National Military Hospital, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Ontario Psychological Association, the Omid Foundation, and Psychotherapy Networker.  He has provided DBT training for community mental health agencies, chemical dependency treatment centers, hospital and residential care settings, and to therapists in forensic settings.  Dr. Pederson also co-owns Acacia Therapy and Health Training (www.AcaciaTraining.co.za) in South Africa. Dr. Pederson currently serves on the advisory board for the doctorial counseling program at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and is a peer reviewer for Forensic Scholars Today.

Lane Pederson is not affiliated or associated with Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, ABPP, or her organization.

Christine A. Courtois, PhD, ABPP, is a graduate of the Counseling Psychology program at the  University of Maryland and a licensed psychologist in DC and MD.  Dr. Courtois has received international recognition for her work on the effects of incest, child sexual abuse, complex traumatic stress disorders and other types of trauma and has received awards from numerous professional organizations. She is a psychotherapist (with broad experience in outpatient and inpatient treatment), workshop leader, and consultant specializing in posttraumatic and dissociative conditions and disorders.

Recently appointed chair of the American Psychological Association PTSD Guidelines Development Panel, Dr. Courtois has co-authored, along with Dr. Julian Ford, Treating Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-based Approach,(2013, Guilford Press), and has a new book, Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders in Children and Adolescents, Scientific Foundations and Therapeutic Models. As well she has brought out the second edition of Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy (W. W. Norton), co-edited (with Dr. Julian Ford) the book Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-based Guide (2009, Guilford Press) and authored Recollections of Sexual Abuse: Treatment Principles and Guidelines (1999, W. W. Norton), Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse: A Workshop Model (1993), Families International), and Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy (1988, W. W. Norton). She has also co-edited a special section on complex trauma with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk in the Journal of Traumatic Stress (2005).

Dr. Courtois is past Associate Editor of the new journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, & Policy http://www.apa.org/journals/tra/). Dr. Courtois is also Co-Founder and former Clinical and Training Director and Consultant to The CENTER: Posttraumatic Disorders Program, an in-patient and day hospital specialty program in Washington, DC, where she worked for 17 years. She is active in a number of professional organizations  having to do with psychological practice and trauma including the American  Psychological Association (where she is past-president of Division 56, Psychological Trauma (www.apatraumadivision.org), the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (www.istss.org) (where she co-chairs the Complex Trauma Task Force), The International Society for Trauma and Dissociation (www.isst-d.org), the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and the Maryland Psychological Association (www.mpa.org) where she organized and co-directed the Post-Doctoral Institute on Psychological Trauma.