Trish is a neurodivergent counselling psychologist who lives in Ireland with her wife and five cats. Over the last number of years she has practised using an integration of mostly acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), compassion-focused therapy (CFT) and body-based modalities of working with complex trauma. Trish co-authored The Power of Small: Making Tiny Changes When Everything Feels Too Much alongside her wife Aisling. Since her autism diagnosis last year, and ADHD diagnosis more recently, Trish became increasingly disheartened that the vast majority of autism resources and services did not have much, if anything, to offer autistic adults. Trish is curious and passionate about bringing her interest in various theories of trauma, along with her own lived experience of complex trauma as an autistic adult, to help understand how we can build a kinder, more compassionate, supportive and understanding world for neurodivergent lived experiences of trauma.

Aisling is a neurodivergent Chartered Counselling Psychologist and is a peer-reviewed ACT and FAP trainer. She has experience working across a variety of settings including organisational, psychiatry, addictions, psycho-oncology, community, public, and educational settings. She is a senior psychologist for ADHD Ireland and is rolling out the Understanding and Managing Adult ADHD Programme (UMAAP) - the first public access government funded programme for adult ADHD in Ireland. Aisling teaches on multiple university courses and regularly delivers ACT workshops internationally; most notably she has given workshops at Harvard Medical School and teaches at Trinity College Dublin at Doctorate level. She is a lecturer on the Masters in Coaching in UCC and the Masters in Pluralistic Psychotherapy at IICP. Aisling is a published author, co‐authoring The Power of Small: Making Tiny Changes When Everything Feels Too Much, a number one bestseller in Ireland. Aisling’s first book, an edited volume co-edited by Matthew Skinta, Mindfulness and Acceptance for Gender and Sexual Minorities was published by New Harbinger.

Kenneth is an Emeritus Professor of clinical and health psychology at The The University of Queensland. His research and clinical practice in psychology span 40 years. Through his 180 publications, 10,000 citations of his work, 80 conference presentations, 3 research awards, 5 teaching awards, and more than 3 million dollars of competitive grant funding, he has become a leader in the application of positive frameworks to coping with adversity. He developed the first ACT university course in Australia which integrates training in therapist competencies and self-care skills and shows published empirical evidence of fostering competent and resilient clinicians. His most significant professional contribution to the LGBTQI+ community was his research and clinical practice over 5 years during the AIDS crisis. In particular, he conducted the first large-scale needs assessment in Australia of people affected by HIV/AIDS and published 10 articles that forged the application of positive coping frameworks and interventions. The following excerpt from the synopsis of Kenneth’s memoir The Trauma Banquet provides a sketch of his personal life. “Brutal and relentless domestic violence carved his early childhood. His merging gender fluidity and sexual diversity mystified and enraged his father and peers. When he was 13, his mother, the centre of his life, committed suicide. From this early intimacy with death, he discovered he could suck the life from pain, and this insight became his guiding light. Cared for by an older sibling in the midst of a shattered family, he suffered violent beatings at high school that punished his gender and sexual diversity. A deep desire to find meaning in his suffering led him on a roller-coaster of drug addiction, hippie communal living, homelessness and the use of sex for material survival. Close to tasting his own death, he found salvation and re-entered society. He took the straight and narrow path through religion, university, marriage, fatherhood and career advancements. The AIDS crisis touched him professionally, a ‘crucifixion’ experience, the death of loved ones from suicide and accidents, and the threat of a degenerative illness skewered him along the way. After he was shattered by divorce, a new path opened that drew him back to his authentic self and gay love.” According to statistics on the mental health of the LGBTQI+ community, the significant traumas and psychosocial challenges Kenneth encountered reflect what many sexually and gender-diverse people experience.