Date and time

9th Jan 2027 9:30 am - 5pm

Location: Online by Zoom. The session will be recorded.

Presented by EMDR Kent Regional Group

Presenter: Prof Derek Farrell MBE – Professor in Trauma Psychology & Veteran Studies, Northumbria University, and Queen’s University Belfast., EMDR Europe Accredited Senior Trainer & Consultant, & BABCP Accredited CBT therapist.

Abstract:

Depression remains one of the most prevalent and treatment-resistant presentations encountered in clinical practice, yet standard EMDR training rarely addresses it as a primary focus. This one-day workshop situates depression explicitly within Shapiro’s Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model, arguing that depressive states are not merely comorbid noise in a trauma presentation, but may themselves reflect maladaptively stored memory networks – encoding early experiences of helplessness, loss, shame, abandonment and unmet attachment need – that actively resist adaptive resolution.
Drawing on emerging evidence from memory reconsolidation research, affective neuroscience and attachment theory, the workshop examines how depression’s characteristic cognitive distortions, somatic heaviness and motivational collapse can be reframed as the phenomenology of frozen information processing. Participants will critically engage with the theoretical case for EMDR as a transdiagnostic intervention, moving beyond its established evidence base in PTSD to explore its applicability to recurrent, chronic and treatment-resistant depression – including presentations where trauma history is absent, disavowed or conceptualised in non-conventional terms such as cumulative relational injury or existential loss.

The day will address key clinical and theoretical challenges: the role of negative cognitions and limiting beliefs as network anchors; the identification of feeder memories in affective presentations; the management of affect dysregulation and dissociative risk; and the adaptation of standard EMDR protocols – including EMDR-PTSD, EMD and recent structured approaches such as the Flash Technique and EMDR Depression Protocol – for complex mood presentations. Equal weight will be given to what the evidence does not yet support, fostering critical practitioner thinking rather than premature clinical enthusiasm.
By the close of the day, participants will have a theoretically coherent and clinically honest framework for integrating EMDR into their work with depression – not as a panacea, but as a potentially transformative addition to the trauma-informed practitioner’s repertoire.

Aims:

1. To explicitly situate depression within Shapiro’s AIP model.
2. To understand depression as frozen information processing.
3. To consider ways of working in EMDR therapy.
4. To consider how depression manifests in different populations.
5. To understand how oppression can lead to depression.

Bio

Prof Derek Farrell MBE is a Professor in Trauma Psychology and Veterans Affairs at the University of Northumbria (Newcastle), and Queen's University Belfast. Derek is President of Trauma Aid International, EMDR All Ireland, and the Trauma Response Network Ireland. He has been involved in several Humanitarian Trauma capacity-building programmes, including Pakistan, Turkey, India, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Lebanon, Poland, Philippines, Palestine, and Iraq. Derek has authored over 60 academic peer-reviewed publications and several book chapters and is the Co-Editor of the Journal of EMDR Practice & Research, and the Oxford Handbook of EMDR therapy. As a keynote speaker – Derek has presented in the USA, Canada, Australia, Cambodia, Thailand, Pakistan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy, Brazil, and Norway. Derek is also involved in several ongoing research programmes including treating moral injury with Law Enforcement (Vermont, USA); EMDR with adults with intellectual disabilities; and death by suicide within military/ veteran populations. In 2024, Derek was the recipient of the prestigious EMDRIA Francine Shapiro Award, for international.

To book a place please visit: https://emdrassociation.org.uk/event/the-aip-model-and-depression-theoretical-foundations-clinical-frontiers-and-emerging-practice-09-01-2027/