Contemporary JEDI’s in EMDR Treatment

A Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) lens is critical to effectively engaging with clients, facilitating culturally relevant interventions and effectively addressing trauma. A JEDI approach to clinical practice includes critical consciousness, cultural humility, and courage by practitioners to name, unpack and deconstruct racialized memories, narratives and traumas that may be linked to other trauma experiences. Clients of color may disclose experiences of trauma coupled with individual, interpersonal, systemic, and vicarious encounters of racial trauma, creating a complex, nuanced trauma presentation. Effective adaptations for clients of color necessitates consideration and acknowledgement of historical trauma, intersectional identities, stigma, power, privilege, and shame in clinical spaces. This presentation will provide a framework for clinicians to enhance their EMDR practices, highlight the significance of anti-racist positionality, and provide strategic recommendations for implementation of a JEDI lens and approach in EMDR treatment.