The idea for—what has become—these new texts began in 2010 after editing two books on EMDR Scripted Protocols. I was thinking about all of the clinical creativity of my colleagues and how important it is to support their work. Ad de Jongh and I were sitting together at an EMDR Europe conference and talking about how to include some of the fascinating research that colleagues have been doing in Europe, especially in the Netherlands. We decided that addressing trauma-, anxiety-, depression-, and medical-related issues would be most illuminating and helpful to our EMDR community. I began developing this project and, in due course, signed a contract with Springer Publishing in November 2010.

On March 11, 2011, the world stepped in by way of the To¯hoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and our EMDR community mobilized to help our Japanese colleagues. I pulled together the Recent Event protocols we had worked on in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Scripted Protocols: Basics and Special Situations to send to the members of EMDR Japan. An international group of concerned EMDR practitioners rallied to support them through webinars, including Ignacio Jarero to teach his team’s EMDR-Integrative Group Treatment Protocol (EMDR-IGTP); Elan Shapiro, to teach his and Brurit Laub’s Recent-Traumatic Episode Protocol (R-TEP); and Carol Martin, who facilitated donations through EMDR HAP’s website. As a result of this process and other catastrophes, I thought that it would be helpful to have a place where all of the updated EMDR work on recent traumatic response would be available, and proposed this to my editor, Sheri Sussman. Ever resourceful, pragmatic, and cognizant of the importance of helping our colleagues respond to recent events, she was enthusiastic and convinced Springer management to switch the deadlines so that Implementing EMDR Early Mental Health Interventions for Man-Made and Natural Disasters: Models, Scripted Protocols, and Summary Sheets preempted the earlier contracted book.

By the time that Implementing EMDR Early Mental Health Interventions for Man-Made and Natural Disasters: Models, Scripted Protocols, and Summary Sheets was delivered in 2013 and published in 2014, the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994) had transitioned to the DSM-5 (APA, 2013), so I had to reorganize the current project. Sheri and I also decided to separate this book into three volumes: Treating Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, and Mood-Related Conditions; Treating Trauma and Stressor-Related Conditions; and Treating Medical-Related Issues. I want to acknowledge the help of Ad de Jongh and Arne Hofmann in this process. These supportive and knowledgeable friends and colleagues assisted me in setting up a new structure for the project and suggested some of the content.

I want to recognize the joint efforts of the 31 authors of these 10 chapters from seven countries (Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States) to complete Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy Scripted Protocols: Treating Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, and Mood-Related Conditions. I owe a great debt to each one of them for the time and energy that they devoted to this project. However, in many cases, our efforts went beyond that. The joy of interaction with my intelligent and creative colleagues is the essence of this effort and is one of the reasons that I continue to edit and work on these chapters. Experiencing their perspectives widened my own as I learned how they cope with the dilemmas of working with their particular population. I hope this text will inspire the clinicians who read it and help them to think about their clinical challenges within the context and structure of EMDR Therapy.

I would like to thank Springer Publishing for the faith that they have demonstrated by publishing this body of work. I would like to acknowledge Sheri W. Sussman—always—for her support, dedication to these projects, and always finding a way to help me as I work within my own time limitations dealing with my practice, my life, and the inevitable book deadlines. She never fails to meet my requests with thoughtfulness and a smile—even in some of the more challenging circumstances. Thank you, Sheri, this book would have been impossible without you.

My consultation groups have always been a point of inspiration and feedback for some of the questions I have had with concept and content. I would like to acknowledge Bernie Epstein, Jane Hart, Kelly Jude, Dave Kannerstein, Diane Koury Alessi, Stephanie Lunt, Kathy Miller, Marie Manzo, Bobby Posmontier, and Sarah Trotta for their feedback on my updated summary sheets, and for sharing their wisdom as clinicians in the consultation groups.

I would like to thank and acknowledge the Western Massachusetts EMDR Regional Group for choosing me as their keynote speaker in May 2014. Their invitation was for me to speak about these four books (now six) on scripted protocols. I had not had the occasion to step back and review this body of work in which I had been engaged for nearly a decade, and they gave me a reason to do so. As I did, I looked at the basic statistics for the 6 books and found that there are approximately 135 authors, 126 chapters (including some updates of the same chapter), from 14 countries on 6 continents (although this may shift a bit before everything is submitted)! Thanks to Jim Helling, my keynote was titled, “EMDR Protocols and EMDR Practice: A Clinician’s Journey Toward Mastery.” It was a challenge to prepare an overview of this amount of work; however, I focused on recent trauma, the importance of self-care for practitioners, and an overview of the books themselves. I came up with eight important take-home messages about the process of my work that I shared with my Western Massachusetts audience:

I would like to add two more take-home messages in keeping with the importance of adding research into our clinical work:

Throughout the process of writing these books, there have been a group of friends and colleagues who have been a consistent source of encouragement and inspiration. Thank you Elaine Alvarez, Michael Broder, Catherine Fine, Robbie Dunton, Irene Geissl, Richard Goldberg, Arlene Goldman, Barbara Grinnell, Barbara Hensley, Donald Nathanson, Mark Nickerson, Zona Scheiner, Howard Wainer, Stuart Wolfe, and Bennet Wolper.

I would like to recognize Barbara J. Hensley for her enormous contribution of the Francine Shapiro Library (FSL). The FSL has been a constant resource for me especially while writing these books from the moment it was online.

As always, I would like to thank Francine Shapiro. Her gift of EMDR Therapy to the world and to me has been incomparable.

I would like to remember my “Aunt” Sis Eisman and “Uncle” Henry Rosenfeld, both of whom passed away early in 2015. They would have loved to see this new book come to fruition.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the people who are involved in my daily life, helping me in so many invaluable ways that allow me both to have a “day” job and to indulge my interest in writing. They are Harry Cook, Rose Turner, and Dennis Wright. My overwhelming thanks to Lew Rossi, who has kept my computers working, even in the shadow of disasters and major catastrophes. I want to acknowledge my miniature schnauzer dog, Emmy Luber, who has been part of my writing from the beginning and always reminds me to take a break and connect with her. Thank you to Shirley Luber, my mother, who has been the primary audience for all I have written from kindergarten to my dissertation and into the present.

I would also like to acknowledge Bob Raymar, who has recently come back into my life after 45 years and changed it in so many ways. Thank you, Bob, for your caring and assistance: listening to my very long keynote, being infinitely patient, always finding time to comment on what I have written, lending me your insightful and discerning perspective and for showing me that the essence of someone can last over time.

I would like to recognize my friend and colleague, Ad de Jongh, by dedicating this book to him. I have known Ad from the early days of EMDR Therapy and he has been an extraordinary resource in the EMDR Therapy community. He has worked to uphold the standard of EMDR Therapy in the Netherlands and taught his colleagues and his students the importance of working within the scientific model by developing the Dutch EMDR Association (one of the largest), hosting continuing education, teaching university students, promoting EMDR Therapy, and helping put together the publication, “EMDR Nieuwsbrief.” He is responsible through his own work and his students for a great deal of research on a wide range of topics, especially with anxiety disorders, and with challenging populations, such as patients presenting with psychosis, intellectual disabilities, and so on. He has presented nationally and internationally and won many awards for his work. Most recently (2014), he was awarded the EMDR Research Award from EMDRIA. For me personally, he has been a friend, collaborator, and someone to whom I can turn to discuss ideas and get valuable feedback. Thank you, Ad, for all that you have done for the EMDR community and for me.