How does EMDR work?

Summary & key facts

EMDR is a therapy that helps with trauma. Researchers ran many experiments to find out how the eye-movement part of EMDR works. They found that it is not the side-to-side eye movement itself that is essential. Moving the eyes up and down, or doing other tasks that make your short-term memory work harder, produce the same effect. The experiments support a working memory explanation, and the paper discusses what this could mean for how EMDR is done.

Key facts:

• Carefully controlled studies show EMDR can reduce trauma symptoms.
• Researchers ran a long series of experiments specifically to test how the eye-movement part of EMDR works.
• The experiments showed that you do not need side-to-side eye movements only. Moving the eyes up and down works the same as horizontal movement.
• Tasks that do not involve eye movement at all can have the same effect, as long as the task uses up working memory, which is the short-term memory you use to hold and work with information.
• The results fit predictions from the working memory explanation and the paper says this creates a solid explanation for how the eye-movement part of EMDR works and what that might mean for the technique.

Abstract

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective treatment for alleviating trauma symptoms, and the positive effects of this treatment have been scientifically confirmed under well-controlled conditions. This has provided an opportunity to explore how EMDR works. The present paper reports on the findings of a long series of experiments that disproved the hypothesis that eye movements or other ‘dual tasks’ are unnecessary. These experiments also disproved the idea that ‘bilateral stimulation’ is needed; moving the eyes up and down produces the same effect as horizontal eye movement, and so do tasks that require no eye movement at all. However, it is important that the dual task taxes working memory. Several predictions can be derived from the working memory explanation for eye movements in EMDR. These seem to hold up extremely well in critical experimental tests, and create a solid explanation on how eye movements work. This paper discusses the implications that this theory and the empirical findings may have for the EMDR technique.

Topics

Child Abuse and Trauma Migration, Health and Trauma Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Aesthetics Art Cognition Cognitive psychology Dual (grammatical number) Economics Engineering Eye movement Literature Management Mechanical engineering Movement (music) Neuroscience Philosophy Psychology Task (project management) Work (physics) Working memory

Conditions & symptoms

PTSD Anxiety or worry Poor sleep Sadness or low mood