In this special pre-conference episode of Past, Present & Future, Dr Russell Hurn is joined by Canadian psychotherapist, EMDR trainer, author and anti-racist researcher-poet David Archer, ahead of David's keynote presentation at the EMDR UK Association Conference in London in March 2027. He is the author of five books which include Anti-Racist Psychotherapy, Racial Trauma Recovery, and Transforming Complex Trauma. His doctoral research involves an approach designed to address complex racial trauma called Rhythm and Processing (RAP) which utilizes predictive processing, memory reconsolidation, and cultural responsiveness to help complex trauma survivors and those who suffer from dissociative symptoms. RAP can be used as an adjunct to support EMDR therapy's eight phase protocol. David's route into EMDR has been anything but conventional. Growing up in Montreal as a second-generation Jamaican Canadian, he became a hip-hop artist and later a software engineer before moving into psychology, social work and family therapy. That combination of creativity, curiosity and a desire to understand how things work continues to shape his approach to psychotherapy. He describes hip-hop as giving him the opportunity to create a “disconfirming narrative” to the messages society gave him about who he could be. David and Russell explore his early clinical work with Indigenous communities, where learning from elders and medicine people — and studying the Mohawk language — challenged him to think beyond imposing a Western model of therapy. Their conversation considers what it really means for EMDR to be culturally responsive: from respecting names and language to allowing clients to process and resource in their mother tongue, even when the therapist does not understand the words being spoken. They also explore anti-racist psychotherapy, racial and intergenerational trauma, dissociation and the limits of the idea of “cultural competence”. For David, therapists can never completely know another person's culture; instead, the task is to remain responsive to the individual client in front of us and to recognise that culture can include everything from language and spirituality to music, television and video games. This leads into David's development of Rhythm and Processing (RAP) and his thinking about how culturally meaningful resources can sit within EMDR's eight-phase framework. He illustrates this with a striking clinical example in which a client's connection with a character from Avatar: The Last Airbender becomes a resource when more conventional approaches had not helped. Along the way, David and Russell discuss NLP and some of EMDR's influences, predictive processing, memory reconsolidation, the importance of remaining a student throughout our professional lives — and why David is creating a hip-hop album as part of his PhD dissertation. A lively, challenging and often very funny conversation about what can happen when we become curious about the whole person sitting in front of us — and allow culture, creativity and identity into the therapy room. David will be presenting at the EMDR UK Association Conference, London, March 2027, as the Association celebrates its 30th anniversary. For more information about his research, practice, and blog, his website is: https://archertherapy.com Books/resources mentioned or relevant to the episode David's published work includes Anti-Racist Psychotherapy: Confronting Systemic Racism and Healing Racial Trauma, Black Meditation: Ten Practices for Self-Care, Mindfulness, and Self-Determination, Racial Trauma Recovery: Healing Our Past Using Rhythm and Processing, and Transforming Complex Trauma: Reflections on Anti-Racist Psychotherapy. This is a Laura Beech production for EMDR UK. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and presenters and are not endorsed by the Association.
