Gabor Maté, MD, is a retired physician and internationally renowned speaker known for his work on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship between stress and illness. After years in family practice and palliative care, he spent over a decade working in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with people facing addiction and mental illness. He is the bestselling author of five books, including In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and The Myth of Normal, and a recipient of the Order of Canada.

Peter A Levine, Ph.D., is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma. He holds doctorates in both Biophysics and Psychology. He is the Founder and President of the Ergos Institute for Somatic Education and the Founder and Advisor for Somatic Experiencing International. Dr. Levine is the author of several best-selling books on trauma, including Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma (published in over 29 languages). He has received Lifetime Achievement awards from Psychoth erapy Networker and from the US Association for Body-Oriented Psychotherapy. He continues to teach trauma healing workshops internationally. Learn more at somaticexperiencing.com.

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is a pioneering clinician, researcher, and teacher in posttraumatic stress whose work integrates developmental, neurobiological, and interpersonal aspects of trauma. His bestselling book, The Body Keeps the Score, transforms our understanding of trauma, revealing how it rearranges the brain’s wiring, and highlighting innovative treatments at the forefront of psychiatry. With over 150 peer-reviewed articles, Dr. van der Kolk has studied such diverse topics as neuroimaging, self-injury, memory, neurofeedback, Developmental Trauma, yoga, theater and EMDR. He is founder of the Trauma Center (now the Trauma Research Foundation) in Boston, MA, past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, Principal Investigator Boston site of MAPS sponsored MDMA assisted psychotherapy study, and teaches at universities and hospitals globally.