How Effective Is EMDR Therapy For PTSD

By Jody Leach


Several people have experienced traumas in different ways. They may have been assaulted and abused physically by other individuals. They may also have encountered a very tragic accident, like a car accident or a plane crash. They may have lost someone they love who died due to sickness or other causes. They may also have went to war and have combat experiences.

For this, a post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD may be developed in an individual. For this, an eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EMDR therapy for PTSD has been used. This is one of the ways in treating the said disorder. An individual will need to know several things about this therapy to help keep him informed about it.

Certain individuals who have experienced traumatic events may exhibit several changes in their behaviors. The slightest movements might be causes of irritation for them. They find it difficult to sleep at night. They might have flashbacks of the events and nightmares once in a while. Concentrating on a specific task which they are asked to perform can be difficult for them.

This therapy is divided into eight phases. In phase one, the therapists will make assessments about the stressful experiences of the patients. The patients may want to forget these things and they will have to talk about it to the professionals. In this session, as well, goals will be set which they want to obtain at the completion of this therapy.

In the second phase, they will be talking of the stressful experiences that occurred. The patient may have to relive the moments and narrate what happened to the medical professional. However, the patient should be emotionally stable to be able to continue in this undertaking. The professional may use several relaxation methods to ensure that he is emotionally stable.

In the third stage until the sixth, the emotions, sensations, beliefs and images which are relevant to the events are discussed. The clientele needs to discuss them while following the finger of the professional with eyes moving back and forth. The activity has to be repeated until the clientele will not find it stressful anymore to discuss what happened.

In the seventh phase, the client needs to write down anything about the stressful experience. In the last one, changes in the behavior of the patient will be evaluated. This is usually done in the last day of the treatment.

The effectiveness of this method has been the subject of several researches and studies done by several medical groups. There are studies which prove that this method is really effective when treating traumatized patients. However, there are also studies which would say that it does not have superiority over other therapies being administered to traumatized people.

This method has been useful to some individuals. However, its effectiveness has not been clearly answered yet. The important thing is that the goal of this method is helping other individuals to let go of the stressful events which are hindering them to live their lives.




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