When Disaster Strikes Our Local Communities: U.S. EMDR Trauma Recovery Network Coordinators Reflect on Lessons Learned

As a result of a dramatic surge of community-wide traumatic events over the last years, we have seen an increase in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)-trained clinicians in the United States who want to volunteer as responders to their own or neighboring communities in the wake of disaster. This grassroots movement was followed by the Trauma Recovery/Humanitarian Assistance Program's (TR/HAP) development of an organizational structure for Trauma Recovery Networks (TRNs) to provide EMDR training and treatment in their own local, affected areas. The personal stories of disaster response interventions by TRNs in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and New York City in 2012–2013 are examples of two decades of HAP team “experiences along the way.” Lessons learned from the inside out are shared to encourage other developing networks in the logistical, emotional, and spiritual preparation for community disaster work. With the unfolding of TR/HAP's development of a National Trauma Recovery Network, there is an opportunity to ensure efficient and effective disaster responses by properly trained and prepared local EMDR clinicians. TRN chapters and their teams continue to increase awareness in local communities of the healing possibilities of acute and longer term trauma symptoms through early intervention with EMDR treatment.