"Today we're going to unravel a specific type of psychotherapy, and it's one that presents the researcher with formidable walls to scale of both support and criticism. Some psychotherapists are firm believers; some are firm detractors. The therapy is called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is controversial as the day is long, and yet it enjoys broad recommendations in most of the world's major guidelines. It also has plenty of criticism of its effectiveness. And it has a wildly unscientific origin story, which never bodes well for any kind of treatment. So now let's dive in and find out if EMDR is for real or phony.
"EMDR is one of a number of treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a potentially serious and debilitating condition in which certain traumatic memories can trigger anything from nightmares and anxiety to an uncontrollable emotional breakdown to a complete dissociative episode. The idea is to reduce the emotional distress associated with traumatic memories, and when used as an adjunct to other therapies, EMDR does this by attempting to get the brain to reprocess those memories via bilateral stimulation. Whether bilateral stimulation can actually do that is mainly where the controversy around EMDR lies. The stimulation is usually guided eye movements back and forth, but can also be tactile or auditory: tapping or holding a buzzer in each hand, or hearing tones played through headphones alternating between left and right. A typical EMDR session would include the patient recalling and talking about their traumatic memory while the therapist moves a pointer from side to side in front of them, for the patient to follow with their eyes. If you were uninitiated and saw this happening, you might well be inclined to wonder what kind of freaky woo you had just walked into."
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