Posted by Ricky Greenwald on January 27, 2000, at 19:41:32
In reply to Re: More on EMDR, posted by Steve on January 7, 2000, at 17:47:52
> Behold the power of the placebo.
I would say, "Behold the power of a smear campaign."
The numerous articles cited a few posts ago give a very misleading picture of the research on EMDR. There is a relatively small group of people who seem dedicated to trashing EMDR, and they are responsible for most of the articles cited.
On the other hand, EMDR has more controlled research supporting its use than any other psychotherapy method used to treat trauma, including direct comparisons to other credible treatments. When EMDR is used properly it consistently comes out either equal or superior.
EMDR's efficacy has been recognized by the American Psychological Association's Committee on Empirically Validated Methods, and by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies' Treatment Guidelines project. EMDR is used by the Red Cross, the FBI, The VA (some programs anyway) etc.
A convincing role has not yet been demonstrated for eye movements. However, all the component analysis studies have been too small to detect anything but a relatively large effect, so if eye movements play a modest role along with other treatment components, this might not show up in the studies that have been conducted to date. So the jury's still out on what (if any) the role of eye movements might be. It should also be noted that EMDR is not just a typical exposure session with eye movements thrown in; it's a rather sophisticated package of treatment components which separately have recognized effectiveness and together seem to do even better.
So please, if you're trying to inform people about EMDR, yes there are still many questions about it, but the smear campaign is getting old and is unsupportable. Since EMDR has helped so many people and since this has been documented in controlled studies again and again, it's time to start focusing on how and why it works.
poster:Ricky Greenwald
thread:14804
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000112/msgs/19822.html