Eye-Movement Desensitisation to Overcome Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Spector, John; Huthwaite, Mark

doi:10.1192/bjp.163.1.106

Cited by 22 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…These findings are consistent with findings by Renfrey and Spates (1994) ;Vaughn, et al (1994); and Wilson, Silver, Covi, and Foster (1996). Additional investigation via case reports (Lipke & Botkin, 1992;Pellicer, 1993;Puk, 1991;Spector & Huthwaite, 1993;Wernick, 1993;Wolpe & Abrams, 1991) has also yielded promising results. Although many of these case studies lack objective or standardized measures, in general these reports revealed positive outcomes in the form of decreases in subjective units of distress as well as decreases in global, physiological, and behavioral expressions of distress.…”

Section: Gmsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Finally, the study relied on many self-report measures that require solicitation of painful material that could introduce certain threats to internal validity. Even so, the instruments selected were consistent with measures used in similar studies (Carlson et al, 1998;Scheck et al, 1998;Spector & Huthwaite, 1993) and were supplemented by behavioral indicators that revealed consonant results.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Use of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the Treatment of Traumatic Stress and Complicated Mourning: Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes

Sprang

2001

Research on Social Work Practice

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the differential effects of treatment on a complex of symptomatology that includes grief, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and self-esteem by comparing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and guided mourning (GM) treatments. Method: Twenty-three EMDR clients and 27 GM clients completed measures designed to assess psychosocial and behavioral symptoms of loss before and after treatment and at a 9-month follow-up period. Results: Out of the five psychosocial measures of distress, four (State Anxiety, Impact of Event Scale, Index of Self-Esteem, and PTSD) were found to be significantly altered by type of treatment provided, with EMDR clients reporting the greatest reduction of PTSD symptoms. Data from the behavioral measures revealed similar findings.

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Section: Gmsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Use of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the Treatment of Traumatic Stress and Complicated Mourning: Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes

Sprang

2001

Research on Social Work Practice

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“…Considerable interest has recently been generated by case reports of rapid improvements in post-trauma symptoms using eye-movements, in the procedure known as eye-movement desensitization-reprocessing (EMD-R; Kleinknecht & Morgan, 1992;Lipke & B o t h , 1992;McCann, 1992;Oswalt, Anderson, Hagstrom & Berkowitz, 1993;Page & Crino, 1993;Puk, 1991;Shapiro, 1989u, b;Spector & Huthwaite, 1993;Wolpe & Abrams, 1991). In the original form of this procedure, clients imagine the traumatic event together with associated thoughts and somatic reactions while they visually track the therapist's finger, which moves rapidly from side to side across the visual field.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Eye‐movements and visual imagery: A working memory approach to the treatment of post‐traumatic stress disorder

Andrade

Kavanagh

Baddeley

1997

British J Clinic Psychol

352

348

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It has been claimed that the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be ameliorated by eye-movement desensitization-reprocessing therapy (EMD-R), a procedure that involves the individual making saccadic eye-movements while imagining the traumatic event. We hypothesized that these eye-movements reduce the vividness of distressing images by disrupting the function of the visuospatial sketchpad (VSSP) of working memory, and that by doing so they reduce the intensity of the emotion associated with the image. This hypothesis was tested by asking non-PTSD participants to form images of neutral and negative pictures under dual task conditions. Their images were less vivid with concurrent eye-movements and with a concurrent spatial tapping task that did not involve eye-movements. In the first three experiments, these secondary tasks did not consistently affect participants' emotional responses to the images. However, Expt 4 used personal recollections as stimuli for the imagery task, and demonstrated a significant reduction in emotional response under the same dual task conditions. These results suggest that, if EMD-R works, it does so by reducing the vividness and emotiveness of traumatic images via the VSSP of working memory. Other visuospatial tasks may also be of therapeutic value.

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“…This perhaps reflects a degree of ambivalence towards EMDR which is referred to by Boudewyns & Hyer, (1996) as possibly arising from Shapiro's (l989b) enthusiastic claims for her treatment and her perceived control of those who may practice it. Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing remains controversial (Herbert & Meuser, 1992;Lohr et al,1992;Page & Crino, 1993, Acierno et ai, 1994, but there are increasing numbers of reports of its efficacy from respected authors (Spector & Huthwaite, 1993;Vaughan et ai, 1994a,b;Wilson et ai, 1996; Van de Kolk et aI1996; Rothbaum, 1997;Carlson et ai, 1998;Schecketal,1998).…”

Section: Comparisons With Other Treatments For Ptsdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing

MacCulloch¹

1999

Adv. psychiatr. treat

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Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) was described by Shapiro (1989a,b) as a new method for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In May 1987, while walking in the park, Shapiro noticed that her own disturbing thoughts changed then disappeared “without any conscious effort” (Shapiro, 1995) when they had been temporally paired with diagonal upward to and fro eye movements. Over the next six months Shapiro worked with approximately 70 people to develop a procedure based on the temporal pairing of distressing images and thoughts with various eye movements. Shapiro began to develop strategies to unblock stalled emotional processing, which was initiated by EMDR in non-patients. She successfully tried the method on a Vietnam veteran suffering from severe PTSD and then embarked upon a trial of EMDR on a mixed group of victims of rape, molestation and Vietnam combat trauma. Initially, EMDR achieved wide recognition as a new breakthrough treatment for PTSD. This was, in part, because of very positive early reports (e.g. Wolpe & Abrams, 1991), but also because the EMDR effect appeared to occur with unprecedented speed, often in cases of PTSD that had previously resisted treatment by many other methods over a long period.

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Eye-Movement Desensitisation to Overcome Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Cited by 22 publications

References 11 publications

The Use of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the Treatment of Traumatic Stress and Complicated Mourning: Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes

The Use of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the Treatment of Traumatic Stress and Complicated Mourning: Psychological and Behavioral Outcomes

Eye‐movements and visual imagery: A working memory approach to the treatment of post‐traumatic stress disorder

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing

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