Five years have passed since Mark Nickerson created the first edition of Cultural Competence and Healing Culturally Based Trauma With EMDR Therapy. During those 5 years, there has been a whirlwind of increasing public awareness and recognition of the need for societal and professional responsiveness. Societal demand has created a need for us to challenge supremacy-culture structures and attitudes at every opportunity. Professional mental health organizations are developing position papers and policies regarding cultural competence. Clients are asking to be seen and heard in ways that will allow a deeper understanding and healing of wounds of oppression and discrimination.

As clinicians, we are all being called to more deeply understand and appreciate the strengths and challenges that individuals experience in their cultural and social experiences. Identification with a culture or a social group can bring many strengths and resources to individuals. It can help us feel the comfort and pride of connection to each other and to our communities. We also know that many cultural or group experiences can be destructive and a source of individual and collective pain and hardships. Culturally competent EMDR therapy provides a unique approach that is particularly well suited to exploring the impact of culture and/or social influence on the individual. We, as EMDR therapy clinicians, can help to break down the barriers that divide people from one another, ranging from the client stuck in hurt and anger, to someone experiencing the pain of exclusion, or those impacted by oppression and discrimination. This book meets the practical needs of clinicians as we sit with clients in our offices and as we train and consult with new EMDR therapy practitioners.

I’ve watched firsthand as Mark has continued to gather information from diverse sources, develop his own thinking and stance about cultural humility, and pursue this passion by informing EMDR clinicians, among others, of the incredible importance of cultural awareness. His efforts have directly shaped the teaching of EMDR therapy and the support of clinicians toward these goals.

Even more comprehensively than in the first edition, this second offering of Cultural Competence and Healing Culturally Based Trauma With EMDR Therapy brings together a cogent model of competence that is familiar to many EMDR therapy clinicians. Mark draws from concepts used to assess general clinical competency and applies the domains of attitude, skills, and knowledge as a method to define EMDR clinical skills in the social and cultural arena. The contributing authors bring their own cultural sensitivity and expertise as EMDR therapy clinicians working with individuals and communities that have faced many challenges. Their wisdom and insight in the use of EMDR therapy to address the impact of social identity are invaluable. The reader will find much to assist in the development of cultural awareness and competence in general, and the application of the Adaptive Information Processing model and specific EMDR therapy protocols in particular. Whether working with distinctly different cultures or exploring the nuances and implications of exclusion or marginalization from the dominant culture or social group, this book gives the EMDR therapy clinician a useful model and specific, practical suggestions for the use of EMDR therapy to heal cultural wounds.

I take great pleasure in introducing Mark Nickerson’s second edition of Cultural Competence and Healing Culturally Based Trauma With EMDR Therapy as a highly recommended guide in the development of cultural awareness and cultural humility, as we all work toward cultural competence.