The 's 2013 report on stress-related conditions found insufficient evidence to support EMDR for acute symptoms of traumatic stress.[33] Its 2023 guideline for mental, neurological and substance use disorders recommended EMDR with moderate evidence for adults and children in treating PTSD.[34]

World Health Organization

The 2018 practice guidelines "strongly recommend" EMDR as an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress symptoms.[35]

International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies

As of 2017, the "conditionally recommends" EMDR for the treatment of PTSD in adults, meaning its use is suggested rather than recommended.[7]

American Psychological Association

The UK 's 2018 PTSD guidelines found low-to-very-low evidence of efficacy for EMDR in treating PTSD, but what was available justified recommending it for non combat-related trauma.[36][37]

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

A 2017 joint report from the US Departments of and Defense describes the evidence for EMDR in the treatment of PTSD as "strong."[38]

Veterans Affairs

The Australian 2013 guidelines recommends EMDR for the treatment of PTSD in adults with its highest grade of evidence, noting that "EMDR now includes most of the core elements of standard trauma-focussed CBT (TF-CBT)" and "the two variants of trauma-focussed therapy are not statistically different."[39]

National Health and Medical Research Council

The 's 2008 report on the treatment of PTSD found insufficient evidence to recommend EMDR, and criticized many of the available studies for methodological flaws including allegiance bias and insufficient controls.[6]

Institute of Medicine

The Dutch National Steering Committee on Mental Health Care has released multidisciplinary guidelines which describe "insufficient scientific evidence" to support EMDR in the acute period following a stressful event (2008), but recommend EMDR's use in chronic PTSD (2003).[41]

[40]

Possible mechanisms

Incomplete processing of experiences in trauma

Many proposals of EMDR efficacy share an assumption that, as Shapiro posited, when a traumatic or very negative event occurs, information processing of the experience in memory may be incomplete. The trauma causes a disruption of normal adaptive information processing, which results in unprocessed information being dysfunctionally held in memory networks.[46] According to the 2013 World Health Organization practice guideline: "This therapy [EMDR] is based on the idea that negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours are the result of unprocessed memories."[16] This proposed mechanism has no known scientific basis.[9]

Other mechanisms

Several other possible mechanisms have been proposed:

History

EMDR was invented by Francine Shapiro in 1987.


In a workshop, Shapiro related how the idea of the therapy came to her while she was taking a walk in the woods, and discerned she had been able to cope better with disturbing thoughts when also experiencing saccadic eye movements.[62] Psychologist Gerald Rosen has expressed doubt about this description, saying that people are normally not aware of this type of eye movement.[62] Gerald Rosen and Bruce Grimley suggest that it is more likely that she developed EMDR out of her experience with neuro-linguistic programming.[63][64][65]


Fuelled by marketing hype, EMDR was taken up enthusiastically by therapists even while scientists remained skeptical.[58] By 2012 more than 60,000 therapists had been trained in its use.[30]

Society and culture

Prince Harry took a course of EMDR and filmed a session for Oprah Winfrey during a mental health television documentary in 2021.[66][2] Producer and actress Sandra Bullock used EMDR following a home invasion by a stalker in 2014.[2]

Abreaction

Treatments for PTSD

List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

EMDR Institute (US)

(March 19, 2024). "Skeptoid #928: EMDR: Looking Past the Pain". Skeptoid.

Dunning, Brian