David Servan-Schreiber Award

We would like to congratulate Carlijn de Roos on receiving the prestigious ‘David Servan Schreiber Award’ during the European EMDR conference in Bologna. Her exceptional contribution to the field of EMDR, especially in the field of trauma treatment in children and young people, is admirable.

Carlijn’s efforts and scientific research have paved the way for improved treatment methods and will positively influence the lives of many children. A well-deserved recognition for her work.

Eva Muenker-Kramer has been co-founding the Austrian EMDR Association in 2003, chairing it until 2021, being active in EMDR-Europe in different functions since 2004 and  supporting Ukraine with EMDR since 2006: In the first 10 years she conducted pro bono training projects as a trainer including supervision heading her team of Austrian and German colleagues.. Up to 2022 she has done 11 EMDR standard trainings in Lviv, Kyiv and Odessa.. By different fund raising sources the projects could also be supported and by the invitation to attend advanced EMDR trainings in Austria for free the way of Ukrainian colleagues to proceed to become supervisors and facilitators was a further step for the develolpment of EMDR in Ukraine. The translation of her textbook on EMDR Therapy into Ukrainian was also helpful. By that it became available for the about 400 participants of her trainings. These colleagues are now working with the population in Ukraine. She initiated and supported the foundation and the growth oft he Ukrainian EMDR Association structurally, organizationaly and practically for years to beocme a full member of the EMDR Europe family.

We are grateful to Eva for her great contribution and for having Ukraine always in her heart.

The David Servan-Schreiber award 2021 was given to Ludwig Cornil, for his outstanding contribution in training clinicians in EMDR all over the world and for continuing David Servan-Schreiber’s legacy. Together with Ludwig Cornil, a close friend of David Servan-Schreiber, the EMDR Europe community honours the memory of David Servan-Shreiber 10 years after he passed away.

Congratulations to Joanne Morris-Smith for her key role in bringing together EMDR clinicians involved application of EMDR with children and adolescents in the UK, in Ireland and in EMDR Europe. She recognised the need to give a voice to clinicians using EMDR to help children and adolescents, creating the C&A Committee in the UK and in EMDR Europe. She was the key person in developing C&A trainings in Europe, maintaining high standard for the trainings, getting people trained all over Europe and constantly fighting for children to be recognised and heard.

Congratulations to our founding fathers and mothers for their outstanding contribution to EMDR and the founding of EMDR Europe in 1999, awarded with the David Servan Schreiber Award: Kerstin Bergh Johannesson, Ad De Jongh, Arne Hofmann, Richard Mitchell, Joany Spierings, Hanne Hummel and Birgit Schulz.

The David Servan Schreiber Award recipient for the year 2018 is Richard Mitchell, first President of EMDR Europe in 1995 and Senior Trainer. He has had the time, the energy and the wisdom to lead an organization as it grew from a fledgling organization into a respected and large organization with 31 member countries.

This award goes to him in recognition of the way he has devoted is life to improving EMDR’s awareness and clinical practice in Europe with other nations of the world.

Dolores Mosquera has a long and prestigious experience in the treatment of Personality Disorders, Complex Trauma and Dissociation. And since she met EMDR, she has been focused in developing the best strategies to treat these disorders with EMDR therapy. She has been very successful working for this endeavor, since she has published 12 books, 6 chapters and over 30 articles, some of them with the main experts in this field.

She has been disseminating and strongly advocating the effectiveness of EMDR and of the Adaptive Information Processing model with these clients, in the scientific and professional community, inside and outside the EMDR world. She has a deeply embedded understanding of the AIP model, that she conveys with an actitude of full respect and compassion for her clients

She has extensive teaching experience, she has done over 140 workshops and lectures throughout Spain, Europe and other continents. She is always willing to share her expertise, in every corner of the world, from China to Argentina, from the U.S.A. to Germany, from Finland to Australia.

EMDR Europe Association wishes to express admiration for her accurate and empathic understanding of complex disorders and of early childhood pain, as well as the admirable compassionate simplicity with which she describes their inner struggle.

She has always had the message that we can work with complexity and with the devastation of early trauma safely with EMDR. Dolores has exercised a wide influence on our EMDR community and has guided us with competence, wisdom, helping clinicians to work with EMDR even in the darkest places of their clients’ minds

The 2016 David Servan Schreiber Award  went to Elan Shapiro for his outstanding contribution to EMDR therapy, in the development (with Brurit Laub)  of the Recent Traumatic Episode Protocol (R-TEP), with its variation of the Group Traumatic Episode Protocol (G-TEP). R-TEP is an integrative protocol that incorporates and extends existing EMDR protocols within a new conceptual framework, together with additional measures for containment and safety.

EMDR Europe has recognized the vision and achievement of Elan Shapiro, who has helped draw attention to the neglected subject of Early EMDR Intervention and the need for developing and researching specialized EMDR protocols for therapeutic interventions in the wake of catastrophes such as natural and man-made disasters. This has resulted in significantly boosting research and innovation in the field over the last 10 years, as demonstrated by the increasing publications in scientific papers and books sections. He has given over 60 presentations and seminars held worldwide. His work has contributed in the establishment of extending EMDR’s therapeutic potential in recent trauma to a borderless audience, as well as increasing the visibility of EMDR, by bringing the EMDR R-TEP worldwide, promoting EMDR’s global role.

Elan Shapiro brings years of mental health care expertise in the treatment of recent trauma to his role and a strong passion for nurturing and training EMDR psychotherapists from all corners of the world. He became active in EMDR very early in his career in 1989 and served as an EMDR Institute Facilitator and was a founding member of EMDR Europe. In 2003, he was elected Secretary of the EMDR Europe Executive Committee and Board, serving two terms until 2011, is an EMDR Europe Accredited Consultant, and currently Chair of the EMDR Europe Website Committee. He has written and co-written over 18 articles on R-TEP topics, including book sections and conference presentation and continues to write, teach and present extensively on the most recent innovations and refinements of the protocols in the treatment of recent trauma.

Udi Oren has guided EMDR Europe Association from 2007 to 2015, giving a great contribution to its enormous development in these years. During his Presidency he enhanced the development of EMDR in emerging countries, helping and guiding the creation of many National EMDR Associations.

One of his main interests during his mandate has been the application of EMDR in the Humanitarian field, supporting Humanitarian interventions and trainings. This has guaranteed an adequate support and treatment to many populations that would not have had this opportunity if Udi Oren would not commit himself to these projects.

He has been an active part in the EMDR Global Alliance network, to which he gave his expertise, competence and a broad International perspective.

During his years of Presidency Udi Oren has worked tirelessly, making presentations, attending hundreds of meetings, traveling to different countries, training and making EMDR Europe a stronger organization.

For all these reasons and for all he has done for EMDR Europe, the Executive Committee and the whole membership of EMDR Europe has selected him for the David Servan Schreiber 2015 award.

Isabel Fernandez was nominated by the President of EMDR Europe Udi Oren as the recipient of the David Servan Schreiber Award in 2014.

As President of the Italian EMDR National Association,the largest in Europe, producing the largest amount of research, Isabel Fernandez exemplifies m any traits of a true leader – a visionary, hardworking, goal-oriented person. In the field of EMDR she has been from the beginning a teacher, a researcher and an organizer of EMDR associations.

She has been training in EMDR in Italy and other countries since 1999, and has distinguished herself by being involved in many HAP projects, as well as a mentor to other National Associations throughout Europe and abroad.

Her motivation and spirit of community moved her to support the growth of others, and her compassionate nature has made her be acclaimed by Past President Udi Oren as a leader with a heart.

In 2013, the David Servan Schreiber Award for Outstanding Contribution to EMDR was given to Derek Farrell, for his seminal ideas in EMDR Therapy throughout his 25 years’ experience in mental health.

Dr. Derek Farrell is a Principal Lecturer in Psychology, an EMDR Therapy Europe Accredited Trainer and Consultant, a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society, and an Accredited Psychotherapist with the British Association of Cognitive & Behavioural Psychotherapies (BABCP). He is currently President of the EMDR UK & Ireland Board, President of Trauma Aid Europe, co-Vice President of EMDR Europe Board andChair of the EMDR Europe Practice Committee. He has been involved in a number of Humanitarian Trauma Capacity Building programmes, training mental health workers in the aftermath of the Turkish and Pakistan earthquakes and the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Derek is presently involved in a long-term project in Pakistan developing mental health psychological trauma services mainly around the intervention of EMDR. Other projects include Turkey, India, Iraq, Thailand, Indonesia, Lebanon,Poland and Palestine. In 1995 he commenced a PhD in Psychology researching survivor’s experiences of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and as a consequence has written several publications on this subject matter. Over the last number of years Derek has worked with British Archery in assisting athletes and Para-athlete archers.

The 2012 David Servan Schreiber Award winner is Arne Hofmann who has been noted for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of EMDR in research, writing, and clinical care, addressing gaps in local and international mental health services.

Dr. Arne Hofmann is specialist for internal and psychosomatic medicine and is head of the EMDR-Institute in Germany as well as research head of the German EMDR hospital in Eichholz near Bonn. He learned EMDR in 1991 during a residency at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California and has introduced it in the german speaking countries. 1994 he founded one of the first psychiatric inpatient units for victims of complex psychological trauma in Germany and has helped develop aftercare programs after mass disasters like the train accident in Eschede 1998 and in the wake of the Tsunami in 2004.
In 2003 he received for his contribution to EMDR the Ronald Martinez Award at the EMDRIA conference in Denver.

Dr. Hofmann is a member of a German national guideline commission on the treatment of PTSD and a past vice president of EMDR-Europe. He is teaching, researching and publishing in the field of psychological trauma and has taught at the Universities of Cologne, Witten-Herdecke, Boston University and the Peking University. He also was a guest professor at the Xihua university in Sichuan, a province in China that suffered from a great earthquake in 2008. He has published on EMDR in acute PTSD, anxiety disorders, phantom limb pain, complex PTSD, depression as well as on the potential mechanisms of the EMDR approach. He coordinates a multicenter RCT study on EMDR in the treatment of depression in a cooperation of centers in four European countries.