Enhancing cultural competency in EMDR

Enhancing cultural competency in EMDR: Transferable learning from cultural adaptations of the EMDR protocol with children and adolescents in Uganda, East Africa

Overview

In order to effectively work with clients who differ from their own cultural groups, clinicians and researchers require cultural competency skills. Drawing on the work of Spierings, Nickerson, Zimmerman, and others, this workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to practise cultural competency skills that can be used in EMDR treatment of children and adolescents from cultures from the Global South. The presenters will give an outline of the existing literature on culture and cultural adaptations in EMDR treatment, discuss practical ways of adapting the protocol in working with children from different cultural backgrounds, discuss case scenarios, and facilitate practical exercises.

Aims and Learning Objectives: Please click here

Femke Bannink Mbazzi, PhD, is a psychologist and cultural anthropologist with 18 years’ work experience in clinical practice and research in Uganda with a special interest in trauma, disability, and quality of life in children and adolescents. She is a Flanders FWO postdoc fellow at Ghent University, and Assistant Professor at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. She is a certified EMDR therapist with EMDRIA and EMDR Belgium and is a member of EMDR Uganda and the Research Commitee of EMDR Africa.