• “Dean has produced a world-class guidebook on how we deal with traumatic wounds"

    Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys, Raising Girls & The New Manhood

  • ”The roughest, most honest, journalistic memoir of war I've ever encountered”

    Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco and Waging a Good War

  • “A gripping read ... I praise Dean’s raw honesty!”

    Senator Jacqui Lambie

  • “I have never read a more visceral & moving account of a person so at war with himself"

    Dr Mark Cross, psychiatrist, author of Anxiety and co-author of Changing Minds

  • “Dean Yates captures the after war of PTSD and moral injury in the most searing way”

    Nancy Sherman, New York Times notable author & philosopher

  • "No work has pulled back the veil on the consequences of trauma & moral injury like this"

    John Bale, co-founder of Soldier On and Fortem. Afghan veteran

  • "Dean raises important questions about the impact work can have on employee mental health and the support they get"

    Amy McKeown, Workplace Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategist

  • "A story like no other. Dean’s extraordinary journey is a gift to those who feel shackled by shame & defeated by trauma"

    Peter Whish-Wilson, Greens Senator for Tasmania

  • "Yates reveals an essential truth about recovery from trauma and moral injury, namely that it is a lifelong challenge"

    Professor Brett Litz, global pioneer on moral injury

Read full endorsements

I’m a workplace mental health expert, public speaker & journalist. I’m also a peer worker at the Launceston Head to Health service. I worked for the international news agency Reuters for 26 years. I led teams that covered the Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami.

I was bureau chief in Iraq when a U.S. Apache gunship killed two Reuters journalists in Baghdad in 2007. Julian Assange published footage of that attack, shocking millions of people. My last role at Reuters was to create and roll out a mental health strategy for the company’s 2,500 journalists.

Meet the Author

Men Are Talking, Are We Listening? Delivering the keynote speech for International Men's Day in Hobart, Nov 17, 2023.

There are many ways I can help your organisation.

My workplace mental health consultancy is largely closed since I joined the Mental Health Council of Tasmania as its policy & advocacy lead in Feb 2024. I am still available for public speaking. See below.

My speaking topics are varied: My healing journey; What a mentally healthy workplace looks like; Trauma & moral injury; Men and emotions; Eyewitness to the world; Navigating life.

I’m happy to negotiate the fee for online/in-person. I often speak for free.

Public Speaking.

Reading the first chapter of Line in the Sand on July 29 in Melbourne.