Sir Mason Durie is from New Zealand and is a member of the Rangitane and Ngati Kauwhata (Maori) tribes. He graduated in medicine in 1963 and completed a psychiatric residency at McGill University in 1970. He was subsequently appointed Director of Psychiatry at the Palmerston North Hospital and was made a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry in 1979.

He was an inaugural member of the New Zealand Mental Health Foundation and pioneered community mental health programmes in New Zealand, with a particular focus on indigenous communities. From 1986-1988 he was Commissioner on the Royal Commission on Social Policy and was appointed Professor of Maori Studies at Massey University in 1988. Professor Durie has served on a number of health committees and has been Chair of the National Health Committee as well as a Commissioner for the New Zealand Families Commission. In 2009-10 he headed a Parliamentary taskforce, ‘Whanau Ora,’ that investigated options for an integrated approach to family-based health and social services.

He has published many articles on indigenous health, the relevance of culture to counseling and psychotherapy, and the links between good health and wider societal attitudes. He has played a significant national role in Maori health workforce development and the recognition of cultural competence and cultural safety.

Professor Durie is currently Professor of Maori Research and Development, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Maori & Pasifika) and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Massey University. In 2010 he was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health and to Maori health.

Jennifer Freyd, since 1992 has been Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/ . She received her B.A. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979 and her Ph.D in psychology from Stanford University in 1983. Prof Freyd has served on the editorial boards of seven journals and since 2005 she has been the editor of the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, a journal closely associated with the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), http://www.isst-d.org/ . Prof Freyd runs an acclaimed research lab that has particularly examined issues concerning trauma, memory and the recovery of memories of past trauma. Arising from her earlier in this area was her landmark book, “Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). For “Betrayal Trauma” she received a 1997 Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology and the 1997 Pierre Janet Writing Award from the ISSTD. She has been the author of many scientific papers and book chapters and has enjoyed wide collaboration with her colleagues e.g. the 2005 paper co-authored with Frank Putnam, Thomas Lyon, Kathryn Becker-Blease, Ross Cheit, Nancy Siegel & Kathy Pezdek, “The science of child sexual abuse”, ( Science, 308, 501). In 2001 she co-edited with Anne DePrince, “Trauma and Cognitive Science: A Meeting of Minds, Science, and Human Experience”, (Haworth Press).

Prof Freyd was the driving force in establishing the Dissociation and Trauma Archives at the University of Oregon Library http://libweb.uoregon.edu/index/news-app/story.1923 and she worked with Prof Richard Kluft to make publically available the entire contents of the journal, “Dissociation”, that was published up to 1998 https://scholarsbank. u oregon.edu/dspace/handle/1794/1129.

Prof Freyd has received several prestigious honours for her research in cognitive psychology, including a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and a Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. Prof Freyd is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, The American Psychological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Though in no way choosing the circumstances, Prof Freyd found herself in a unique and challenging position regarding the modern evolution of psychotherapy as a polarizing debate regarding the nature and accuracy of recovered memories of childhood trauma. In an arena in which science could be and was, frequently relegated to the sidelines, Prof Freyd demonstrated enormous dignity, clear-headedness and resolve. The scientific construct of betrayal trauma added a significant element to the understanding of why children subjected to inescapable repetitive trauma at the hands of someone who is also a principal caregiver, frequently develop partial or complete amnesia regarding their abuse.

Prof Freyd is an accomplished teacher and regularly gives graduate seminars on trauma in its wider context covering topics that include dissociation, ethics, power dynamics, trauma and psychosis etc. She has previously given seminars or plenary conference papers on her work in USA, Canada, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. Some local professionals will have attended seminars she gave in Australia that were organized by the Cannan Institute and by The Delphi Centre during a brief visit she made in 2002. In early 2009 she spent several weeks in New Zealand as a University of Canterbury, Erskine Fellow.

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist practicing in Rome, Italy. Currently teaches “Implications of attachment theory for psychotherapy” in the APC School of Psychotherapy and in the Post-graduate School of Clinical Psychology of the Salesian University, Roma, Italy.

His interest for the clinical applications of attachment theory and research dates back to 1975, and was first expressed in a book co-authored with V.F. Guidano, (“Cognitive processes and emotional disorders”, New York, The Guilford Press, 1983). Since then, this interest has focused mainly on the links between dissociative psychopathology and disorganization of attachment. For the papers published on this theme, he received the 2005 Pierre Janet’s Writing Award (The International Society for the Study of Dissociation). In 2006 he received the International Mind and Brain Award (University of Turin, Italy). He has been an invited speaker at the John Bowlby Memorial Conference, London 2007, and Keynote Speaker to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Section of Psychotherapy Annual Bi-National Conference, 2008, on the theme of attachment disorganization in trauma-related disorders.

Colin Ross, MD is an internationally recognized clinician, researcher, writer and lecturer on psychological trauma. He is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation and the author of over 150 books, papers and book chapters and has reviewed for numerous professional journals. His awards include the Morton Prince Award for Scientific Achievement (1989) and the President’s Award (1990) from the International Society for the Study of Dissociation.

He is the founder and President of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma which provides treatment for trauma related disorders and symptoms including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Borderline Personality Disorder, Addictive Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Depression, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Dr. Ross is the Executive Medical Director of three programs located at Timberlawn Mental Health System in Dallas, Texas, Forest View Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Del Amo Hospital in Torrance, California.

Russell Meares is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Sydney University and Director of Mental Health Sciences at Westmead Hospital in Sydney.
 - Trained at Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospitals, 1963 -1968, co-founding with Robert Hobson the Conversational Model of psychotherapy.
 - Founder of the academic department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, at the Austin Hospital 1969.
 -  Foundation Chair of Psychiatry of Sydney University at Westmead Hospital, 1981, Foundation President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy in 1989.

His most recent books are: “Intimacy and Alienation”, 2000; “Metaphor of Play”, revised and enlarged edition, 2005.  Awarded Distinguished Psychiatrist of the Year, at UCLA, 2007 and the RANZCP NSW Branch, Meritorious Service Award, 2009.

Born 1952 in Austria, Ph.D in Psychopathology and Pedagogics in Salzburg.
 
Full professor at the Sigmund Freud University Vienna Paris.
President of the World Council for Psychotherapy.
General secretary of the European Association for Psychotherapy.
Collaborator for the Austrian law for Psychotherapy and advisor in some European ministeries.

Trained in several psychotherapeutic methods (client-centered psychotherapy, gestalt, psychoanalysis and grouptherapy).
Author and publisher of about 20 books on psychotherapy, for example “Globalized psychotherapy”, Facultas, Vienna, Austria 2002 (in english)
“Dictionary of Psychotherapy”, Springer, 2000, Vienna (in German, 2010 in Spanish)

Rector of the Sigmund Freud University Vienna.

Colin Ross, MD is an internationally recognized clinician, researcher, writer and lecturer on psychological trauma.  He is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation and the author of over 150 books, papers and book chapters and has reviewed for numerous professional journals. His awards include the Morton Prince Award for Scientific Achievement (1989) and the President’s Award (1990) from the International Society for the Study of Dissociation.

He is the founder and President of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma which provides treatment for trauma related disorders and symptoms including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Borderline Personality Disorder, Addictive Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Depression, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Dr. Ross is the Executive Medical Director of three programs located at Timberlawn Mental Health System in Dallas, Texas, Forest View Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Del Amo Hospital in Torrance, California.

Mary Target PhD first trained as a clinical psychologist, then as a psychoanalyst and is currently Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College London, and Professional Director of the Anna Freud Centre which is a psychoanalytically-orientated centre for the study and treatment of children and young poeple.

She is a Fellow of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, and Course Director of UCL’s Masters in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies and Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She carries out research on child and adult attachment, personality functioning and mentalization, and has a half-time psychoanalytic practice with adults and older adolescents.