Stephen W. Porges, PhD, is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium within the Kinsey Institute. He holds the position of Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He served as president of both 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 more than 300 peer reviewed scientific papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, neuroscience, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics, space medicine, and substance abuse. In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. 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) 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 1000 therapists to improve spontaneous social engagement, to reduce hearing sensitivities, and to improve language processing, state regulation, and spontaneous social engagement.

Janina Fisher, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and a former instructor at the Trauma Center, founded by Bessel van der Kolk, MD. A faculty member of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an EMDR International Association consultant, past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, and former instructor, Harvard Medical School, Dr. Fisher lectures nationally and internationally on the integration of the neurobiological research and new trauma treatment paradigms into traditional psychotherapies. 

Deb Dana, LCSW, is coeditor, with Stephen Porges, of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies and the author of The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation. She is a clinician and consultant specializing in working with complex trauma and is the Coordinator of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. She developed the Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series and lectures internationally on ways in which Polyvagal Theory informs work with trauma survivors.

Kate Cohen-Posey, MS, LMHC, LMFT, is the director of Psychiatric & Psychological Services in Lakeland, FL and has 40 years of clinical experience. Her best-selling client handout books offer concise information on common disorders and relationship problems; Making Hostile Words Harmless teaches how to disarm attack-defend-withdraw neural pathways and is endorsed by Stephen R. Lankton, protégé of Milton Erickson; Empowering Dialogues Within gives more than 50 examples of brain change strategies by wiring negative brain centers with their counter parts in the positive frontal lobe through dialogue. She is the inventor of the Handy Brain Model – a teaching tool that makes complex neurological information understandable. Kate has a knack for integrating wisdom from CBT, Ericksonian hypnosis, Gestalt, Ego State, EMDR, Somatic, and Brain-spotting therapies with knowledge emerging from neuroscience and brain imaging studies. She has also studied with the Hokori-Ji Zen Center and has been practicing yoga for many years. 

Dafna Lender, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker who has worked in the field of child welfare and child mental health for 20+ years. Dafna serves as the program director at The Theraplay Institute in Evanston, IL and is certified as a practitioner, supervisor and trainer in both Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). Dafna trains psychotherapists internationally in these methods and trains in three languages.

Dafna’s focus is children’s development of a secure attachment with their caregivers while resolving issues in their traumatic history. Early in her career, Dafna worked in treatment foster care and witnessed child after child “fail” out of foster placements due to difficult behavior. Children were disruptive, unsettled and unhappy, and their caregivers felt defeated. Dafna’s sense of discouragement went way after taking the Theraplay training and learning direct, concrete ideas and interactions that she could apply in home with her treatment families to promote healthier, stable relationships. Dafna has successfully treated children with a variety of backgrounds, including children raised in orphanages, with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, exposed to domestic violence and community violence and children of parents with chronic mental illness.

Jonathan Baylin, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with 30 years of experience, offers the workshop "Putting the Brain in Therapy." He's coauthoring a book with Daniel Hughes on the parenting brain and treatment for parents experiencing blocked care.