I’d considered doing a really fancy, graphics-rich newsletter (envious of Annabel McG for her recent one), but time and age intervened, so herewith (what was going to be) a short update on key (non-retiring) EMDR Focus developments.

The emphasis from autumn will be on monthly live session-and-practice workshops and Open Spaces for extensive Q&A about attachment-informed EMDR, as well as, of course, continuing Unleash workshops Parts 1 & 2.

Jutta and I are also now firmly planning to reprise (cancelled in August 2020) a full set of in-person workshops in New Zealand and Australia in February/March next year. With thanks to those who have already done so, here’s where colleagues can register interest.

I’m changing too the Ts&Cs for joining the EMDR Focus referral network. 

Instead of charging a small annual fee, any colleague who’s done at least Unleash Part 1 live (or the EMDR Learning Community’s 5-part online cohort) is now welcome to apply to join the bare-bones EMDR Focus referral list run through Google Groups.

Colleagues who’ve also done at least Unleash Part 2 can apply to join the EMDR Focus Therapist/Consultant Directory.

Staying on the lists will now require at least two hours a year of refresher CPD/Continuing Education live with EMDR Focus. Note that the entry bar is set quite high – and here’s the application form.

To get back to the wider narrative, ai-EMDR is getting some very reassuring traction in the US, where my third five-parter cohort with Rotem Brayer’s EMDR Learning Community ending this past week attracted nearly 50 online enthusiasts.

And, whisper it quietly, I’ve also this weekend just completed an online three-parter for EMDR Russia, delivered via EMDR Kazakhstan with around 100 regular participants, the whole thing being done, including my live demonstration sessions, in Russian.

Full disclosure: I studied Russian, with German, at Uni, and have spent long and rewarding years in Moscow where Jutta and I met in 1974. My ambition before eventually actually retiring is to do this in Hungarian too.

Also warming is feedback from my half-day presentation on ai-EMDR as a paradigm shift in trauma work viewed by more than 400 participants at the EMDRIA international online conference last September, for example.

“Absolutely brilliant presentation. This perspective shifted how I conceptualize early trauma entirely.”

My thoughts on attachment in EMDR also figure prominently (yes, it’s been quite a year…) in a new comprehensive exploration of advanced trauma therapy on PESI, where I’m lined up with speakers such as Jamie Marich, Arielle Schwartz, Rebecca Kase, Bruce Hersey and others.

For those interested in our other principle form of bilateral stimulation, tandeming long-distance, I’ll be blogging occasionally from this coming week as Jutta and I head off on Daisy2 around Transylvania.

The blog has now been running since 2008, and besides all the cycling stories, there are approaching a thousand hours of audio recordings from my time as Radio News and then Diplomatic Correspondent for the BBC in Beijing and London. (Long before I even knew what psychotherapy was.)

Hoping, as we travel, for an end to the war in Ukraine, but that’s a much bigger story.

All bilateral best, as ever.