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For professionals Meet the team Mani Mehdikhani
Mani Mehdikhani
Trustee and Volunteer
Why did you choose to train (or retrain) in EMDR therapy?
I chose to train in EMDR to strengthen my clinical work with trauma, particularly at a point early in my career when I recognised a gap in my direct experience of trauma-focused interventions. In my first post-qualification role in addiction services, I saw firsthand how central trauma was to many clients’ difficulties, and I wanted a more effective, evidence-based way of addressing it. A colleague’s recommendation initially led me to EMDR, but I did not come to it uncritically and in fact I was quite sceptical at first. What ultimately shifted my perspective was not the theory alone, but the experience of using EMDR in practice. As I began working with clients with post-traumatic stress histories, I saw meaningful changes: reductions in symptoms, improvements in day-to-day functioning, and an overall increase in quality of life. EMDR became an important part of my practice because of its ability to help clients process trauma in a way that goes beyond purely verbal therapies, often reaching aspects of experience that can be difficult to access through talking alone. It also helps that it does not ask clients for homework!
What is your favourite place on the planet?
My favourite place in the world? Hard to pick just one place. I am tempted to say wherever my family (wife and daughter) are. If I was on my deathbed and granted a wish to visit one place for the last time, I would pick Persepolis (near Isfahan, Iran) the ruins of the ancient seat of power of the Achaemenid kings of the Persian Empire which I visited once as a child. With my wife and daughter beside me ...