Joanne H. Twombly, MSW, LICSW is a psychotherapist in private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts. She has over 30 years of experience working with Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders and provides trainings and consultation.

She has written chapters on EMDR and Dissociative Disorders, EMDR and Internal Family Systems, and on working with Perpetrator Introjects. Her book “Trauma and Dissociation Informed Internal Family Systems: How to Successfully Treat Complex PTSD, and Dissociative Disorders” (2023) is the first book to integrate Internal Family Systems with knowledge from the trauma and dissociation field.

Her commitment to providing clients with healing and has resulted in her becoming an EMDR Consultant and a Trauma and Recovery HAP Facilitator, Internal Family Systems Certified, and an American Society for Clinical Hypnosis Consultant.

She is a past president of the New England Society of Trauma and Dissociation, served on various ISSTD committees and on the board. She received ISSTD's Distinguished Achievement Award and is an ISSTD Fellow.

Eli Somer, Ph.D., is a full clinical professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Haifa School of Social Work. He is a licensed clinical psychologist and hypnotist and an Israel Ministry of Health certified supervisor of psychopathology and psychodiagnostics training. Prof. Somer has been treating survivors of trauma since the mid-1980's, himself a son of Holocaust survivors and a combat veteran of 2 major middle-east wars. Somer has also served as reservist mental health officer (captain) and commander of a front-line combat stress treatment unit of the Medical Corps of the Israel Defense Forces.

As an academic, Somer has written over 150 scientific publications in the field. He has identified a phenomenon he termed Maladaptive Daydreaming and his current research focuses on this excessive and distressful form of fantasizing.

 Eli Somer was founder and scientific advisor of Trauma and Dissociation Israel (TDIL). He is co-founder and past president of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD) and past president of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). Eli is currently involved in the establishment of the International Society for Maladaptive Daydreaming.

Somer is the ISSTD recipient of the Cornelia Wilbur Award (2000) for his outstanding clinical contributions to the treatment of dissociative disorders and the recipient of ISSTD's Fellow status (2001) for his excellent contributions to the field of dissociative disorders. Eli Somer also received the President's Award for outstanding leadership twice: from the ISSTD (2006) and from the ESTD (2012) and in 2014 the ISSTD awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been listed twice as one of the 10 best clinical psychologists in Israel.