In the United States:

Kaethe Weingarten, Ph.D., (pronounced Kay-tah), founded and directs the Witnessing Project. She is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, where she has been on the faculty since 1981. She founded and directs the Program in Family, Trauma and Resilience: Integrating Biology, Psychology, Family, and Community Perspectives. She co-developed and taught in the Program in Narrative Therapies at the Family Institute of Cambridge and has supervised at the Victims of Violence Program, based at Cambridge Health Alliance. She is a member of the Kosovar Family Professional Education Collaborative and Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the American Family Therapy Academy.
Her professional activities include teaching nationally and in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe and New Zealand; service on the editorial boards of five journals; and writing (six authored or edited books; over 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals; and many book chapters.

She is a Fellow of the Divisions of Family Psychology and the Psychology of Women of the American Psychological Association, from whom she received the 1994 award for Psychotherapy with Women. In 2002 she was awarded the highest honor of the American Family Therapy Academy, the award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Theory and Practice.

Dr.Weingarten’s current work focuses on the development and dissemination of a witnessing model to ameliorate the effects of violence following domestic, inter-ethnic, racial, political and other forms of conflict. She has taught this model to hundreds of professionals and used the model in consultation with individuals, couples, families and organizations, as well as with traumatized populations in Kosovo and South Africa.

Email: Kaethe@witnessingproject.org

Carol (Corky) Becker, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and family therapist, maintains a full time private practice with couples, families and individuals. She has been on the faculty of The Family Institute of Cambridge since the mid 1980’s, where she has taught in both the Foundations of Family Therapy Program and the Intensive Program in Family Therapy. In the last four years she has been teaching an advanced seminar in witnessing as a reflecting team practice. During this time a central interest has been working with people in chronic conflict in families and communities.

Dr. Becker is a founding member of the Public Conversations Project (PCP), which is dedicated to transforming polarizing conversations into dialogue. At PCP she is one of the trainers for the Power of Dialogue workshop. Recently she was involved with designing and facilitating an intra-Jewish dialogue about the Middle East at a local reform Temple.

She consults to the Project on Negotiation (Interpersonal Skills Exercise) at Harvard Law School and is a member of the Kosovar Family Professional Educational Collaborative, a program co-developing with Kosovar mental health professionals family-centered, community-based, resource-driven approaches to clinical care. She has been to Kosovo five times since 2000.

Email: corkybecker@aol.com

In South Africa:

Dirk Kotzé, MA (Clinical Psychology), DD (Doctorate in Divinity), is the founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Development (ITD) in Pretoria, South Africa. Since 1995, ITD has contracted with the University of South Africa to design and teach masters and doctoral level programmes. Currently, 115 masters and doctoral students are enrolled. Training and research programmes focus on practices that will contribute to transformation of people and communities in Southern Africa.

Dr. Kotzé was a professor at the University of the Free State from 1984-1995. He has authored or co-authored 11 articles in peer reviewed journals and has co-edited two books: Ethical ways of being (2002) with Johan Myburg and Johann Roux; and Telling Narratives (Spellbound edition) (2001) with Elmarie Kotzé.

He has a special interest in psychology and religion, seeking to understand how both of these constitute people's lives and relationships through powerful socio-political discourses. He appreciates the healing practices of both religion and psychology whilst challenging the oppressive practices in favor of more ethical ways of being.

Email: djk@cybertrade.co.za

In New Zealand:

Elmarie Kotzé, D Litt et Phil, is currently a Senior Lecturer at thet University of Waikato, in New Zealand. Elmarie has received training in South Africa, the United States, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. She has also taught at the University of Otago, New Zealand, 1995-1997, where she edited a book, A Chorus of Voices (2000), on the clinical work of Masters and Doctoral students from the Counselling and Educational Psychology Program.

She has co-edited two books: Telling Narratives (2001) with Dirk Kotzé (2001) and Matchboxes, Butterflies and Angry Foots (2002) with Elize Morkel. Dr. Kotzé has authored/co-authored articles on the challenges and practices of counselling in South Africa, which have been published in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

She is especially committed to addressing gendered and racial practices of oppression and marginalization. Together with the students, she supervises projects that contribute towards transformation of a post-apartheid South African society.

Email: elmariek@waikato.ac.nz