|
Oklahoma City. The battlefields of the Balkans. Religious conflict in Northern Ireland. War survivors in Rwanda and Kenya. Rape survivors in Philadelphia and San Francisco. Post-earthquake Turkey. Inner-city Brooklyn. The
Middle East. Natural disasters from North Dakota to Southeast Asia. Devastation and suffering in Algeria. Budapest. Bangladesh. Colombia. El Salvador. Ukraine. Uganda. New York City after 9/11.
The common denominator in all of these places is: suffering.
Whether the result of a terrorist plot, a powerful quake or an embattled citizenry, history has shown that suffering leads to more suffering, violence begets more violence.
In each of these places (and many more), volunteer clinicians from EMDR HAP have stepped in to try to stop the cycle - often at personal expense or even risk. We do it so that the common denominator in all these places might someday be hope and healing.
Please see "Our Efforts" and "Reports From the Field" for summaries of some of our programs around the world.
Just 8 years since its birth in the aftermath of a terrorist’s bomb in Oklahoma City, EMDR HAP has a global presence, with past or ongoing programs in some 70 countries worldwide.
Since 1995, thousands of clinicians have learned to treat trauma using the EMDR method as a result of training programs coordinated by EMDR HAP and funded by individual donors or organizations. Every clinician trained through these programs becomes an ambassador for healing in their own communities. Countless thousands have already been helped because of HAP initiatives.
With each person helped, the circle of healing grows. With each act of violence prevented, the cycle of suffering is interrupted.
Our mission is based on the fundamental belief that violence and suffering are perpetuated from one generation to the next. The flip side of that belief is that healing and hope can also flourish. By healing the child of trauma, the child is given the opportunity to grow out of the emotional pain. When the child becomes a parent, she will not take out her suffering on her own children, and her children will not grow up to be embittered adults. The ripple effect can continue for generations – even indefinitely, if given the chance. But it all must begin with one person who is willing to reach out and help stop the suffering. And that is precisely what EMDR HAP is attempting to do every day, all over the world.
The ripple effect of healing and hope must be allowed to perpetuate, so the cycle of suffering can be broken.
The thousands of therapists who have learned to effectively treat trauma through HAP training missions, together with those who have been treated directly by HAP volunteers, are powerful testimony to the legacy of hope and healing that we are building. But the power of our outreach does not end with those we have touched directly: countless thousands more have been healed at the hands of therapists we trained. Around each individual survivor is an even larger circle of people spared from violence or suffering because the cycle was broken. One person at a time.
|