Dr. Lee-Anne Gray

Lee-Anne Gray, PsyD, is a clinical and forensic psychologist, educator and author. She is certified in EMDR, a trauma treatment, as well as a national speaker in self-compassion, mindful awareness, assessment, special education, and gifted individuals.

As the president and CEO of The Connect Group, she currently serves the global educational community with innovative professional development seminars in empathy, compassion cultivation, K12 Design Thinking, and transformational coaching. She also teaches Self-Compassion for Teens to clinicians, physicians, nurses, educators, and allied health professionals for PESI, the nation’s largest provider of continuing education for professionals. Dr. Gray enjoys using EMDR to treat trauma, anxiety, and promote peak performance in students, families, professional athletes, and high-performing executives.

Prior to this, Dr. Gray was supervising psychologist at the largest special education nonprofit organization in the nation. Dr. Gray is formerly an instructor of Psychology of Gender in the Departments of Psychology/Women’s Studies at UCLA, and in 2012, she curated and organized TEDxStudioCityED. And in 2011, she began exploring the concept of Educational Trauma, sharing some of her findings in Huffington Post.

She is also a contributing author to Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect: On the Lives and Education of Children (Peter Lang, 2015,) where she discussed Educational Trauma and Empathic Education for a Compassionate Nation (EECN ). Along with young people as equal participants, Dr. Gray co-designed EECN to promote co-learning and mitigate Educational Trauma. EECN is a democratic educational model, shaped by Design Thinking, and piloted as The Connect Group School. The Connect Group School is an example of students practicing self-compassion as one way of addressing Educational Trauma.

Dr. Gray’s latest book, Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities and Practices to Cultivate Kindness, is the first of its kind; a collection drawn from her work with teens at The Connect Group. Self-Compassion for Teens is enthusiastically endorsed by Tara Brach, Christopher Germer, Kelly McGonigal, Chris Willard, among others. It is the #1 New Release on Amazon, in Child Popular Psychology and Emotional Mental Health.

Sub-specialties: Educational Trauma, Mindful Awareness, Empathy, Compassion, Self-Compassion, Special Education, Gifted, Professional Athletes and High Performing Executives, peak performance.