Social and cultural adaptation

We know from research that since neurobiology is the same for humans, then the reaction to stress is the same for all human beings in the world. That is why EMDR works so well with victims of natural disasters and of adverse childhood experiences, including sexual and physical violence and emotional neglect. Because of cognitive functioning, e.g., creating metaphors and images for self-soothing, establishing social contact and/ or personal interpretation, or assigning meaning to stressful experiences, we have to emphasize the importance of cultural influences. We want to invite people from different cultures to join this open meeting to present, share, and discuss their experiences and perhaps difficulties with cultural adaptation of trauma-therapy techniques, including EMDR. For example, we may need to examine where and how the wording of the EMDR-protocol needs to be adapted to recognize and accommodate cultural differences; perhaps we need to look at the language structure and its accessibility. Let us share our ideas and experiences so that we may get new insights on how to more effectively implement our trauma-therapy techniques and spread our knowledge about neurobiology to various cultural backgrounds.

Conference

English

Helga Matthess
Yuchuan Yang

Matthess, H., & Yang, Y. (2010, July). Social and cultural adaptation. Presentation at the 1st EMDR Asia Conference, Bali, Indonesia