NCJ Number
205998
Journal
Trauma, Violence, & Abuse Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: July 2004 Pages: 285-300
Date Published
July 2004
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This study provides a systematic research synthesis of EMDR studies targeting trauma symptomology published between 1997 and 2003.
Abstract
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychological treatment method developed by Francine Shapiro. Its primary use is treatment for individuals who have experienced trauma. The eight-phase treatment protocol uses bilateral stimulation to allow clients to work through traumatic events with the goal of desensitizing and reprocessing memories to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology. Guidelines to determine the effectiveness of and evaluate EMDR have been identified by many authors. The guidelines used were the gold standard, the revised gold standard, and the platinum standard. Researchers concluded that practitioners should remain aware of emerging research in EMDR. Research should follow the American Psychological Association Publication Manual (5th edition) recommendations of reporting effect size to allow the reader to fully understand the importance of findings and/or facilitate meta-analyses that will continue to contribute to the scientific research base. Researchers should clearly spell out symptom target, treatment procedure, and protocol so that the clinical community can extrapolate practice techniques found to be effective. Finally researchers should also consider the platinum scale criteria to shape their EMDR studies. appendix, references, tables, figure