Faith and Spirituality in EMDR - Friday Nov 21, 2025

We warmly invite EMDR colleagues from across East Anglia and beyond to join us online for a very special day of reflection, dialogue and learning.

This year’s regional autumn gathering explores the place of faith, spirituality and religion in our work as EMDR therapists. We will hear a rich variety of personal perspectives from colleagues of different traditions, and consider together how our own understandings of spirituality – however defined – shape our therapeutic practice.

Rather than a single keynote, the day offers a series of short contributions interwoven with Q&A and small group discussions.

Selvira Draganovic – a Bosnian perspective.

Selvira is Associate Professor at Sarajevo University, teaching courses ranging from mental health and positive psychology to psychopathology and trauma. Her main research interest alternates from risk to protective factors in mental health and psychopathology, tackling attachment, marriage and family, abuse, violence and trauma.

Rabbi Dr David Roth – the view within Orthodox Judaism.

David received Rabbinical Ordination in 2005, following 12 years at Talmudical Colleges in England & Jerusalem. He holds a Professional Doctorate in Child and Educational Psychology (registered with the HCPC & chartered with the British Psychological Society). Completed EMDR training in 2012 and became accredited with EMDR Europe this year (2025).

Ashraf Muwafaq Flaiyah – President of EMDR Iraq. A Muslim perspective.

Ashraf is a clinical psychologist with a UK PhD, currently serving as Head of the Clinical Psychology Department at IJUS Iraq where he leads academic development and supervises clinical training for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Ashraf is an EMDRIA certified therapist and Consultant-in-Training, coordinating the Iraqi group within Trauma Aid UK (TAUK) and promoting professional capacity building and mental health awareness across the country.

Shohreh Azarkadeh – insights from the Baha’i tradition.

Shohreh is a UKCP-accredited integrative psychotherapist with more than three decades of experience. Drawing on the Bahá’í vision of unity and the spiritual evolution of humanity, she offers a reflective view on how EMDR can honour the sacred dimension of healing while remaining deeply human and inclusive.

Beverley Hutton – a Christian perspective.

Beverley Hutton is an EMDR Practitioner with an MA in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. She is Clinical Director of the Christian mental health charity Still the Hunger, and is based in Somerset where she has been offering intensive residential EMDR retreats for some time now. Whilst not exclusively the case, a large percentage of her work is with people for whom including their Christian faith within their EMDR journey is extremely important.

Kamla Dadral – a Hindu-and-more view from South Asia.

Kamla is an integrative psychotherapist and EMDR practitioner drawing on her Sikh and wider Indian heritage. She works with mental health across borders and explores how cultural belonging, compassion and ancestral wisdom can help restore safety and connection in the healing process.

Jutta & Katharine Brayne – The role of silence and connection to nature.

Jutta and Katharine offer an experiential component for more personal exploration. In a day filled with insights from many traditions, they hope this can be a space to reflect and digest for oneself, as well as to learn a little of their approaches.

Having grown up in West Germany and travelled widely with her family, Jutta’s training in advanced transpersonal psychotherapy, CBT, breath- and dreamwork, as well as her own silent retreat experiences, inform her interest in the transformative potential of silence within EMDR sessions. Her work focuses on how such moments can support healing and spiritual growth, helping clients shift their perspective on themselves, their past, and their present life.

Katharine is an EMDR-trained integrative psychotherapist (MBACP, NCPS) with more than 20 years of personal study in healing and spirituality. She brings a younger generation’s perspective on spirituality as experienced through nature, and a deep curiosity about how neuroscience and metaphysics influence healing both generally and within the EMDR process.

Shelley Pompana Spear Chief – Indigenous perspectives from North America.

Shelley is an EMDR Consultant and Hypnotherapist, identifying as an Indigenous Dakota Woman (knowledge keeper/elder) married into the Blood Reserve, known as Kainai, in Alberta, Canada, and working with First Nations. Her co-authored book Eagle Wings Flapping: Beaver Learns to Manage Big Emotions explores the idea of Eagle Wings Flapping as a form of bilateral stimulation. With Sandra Paulsen she also wrote Indigenous Trauma and Dissociation: Healers, Psychotherapy and the Drum.

Chaired by Mark Brayne, this day will be personal, practical and grounded – with examples from clinical work as well as opportunities for open sharing, and a clear focus on how, in our therapeutic encounters, spirituality and EMDR can meaningfully be joined.

Programme

09:00 – Arrivals & welcome

09:15 – 12:30 Morning talks and Q&A

12:30 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15 – 15:30 Afternoon sessions, breakouts and plenary

16:15 – 16:30 EMDR East Anglia Regional Group AGM

All colleagues working enthusiastically with EMDR, not just Association members, are warmly welcome.