A Realistic Appraisal of EMDR

This brief article addresses only a few of the major issues raised by the aggressive promotion of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as a "miracle " treatment for problems as diverse as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the distress associated with Encopresis. By now, most psychologists have heard of this technique, which involves a therapist waving fingers in front of a patient's face to produce eye movements while the patient accesses a disturbing image. Alternate maneuvers such as finger snapping are also used to produce alternating bilateral stimulation. According to its developer, Shapiro (1989), EMDR works by altering neural connections among affect, cognition, and memory. To learn more about research on EMDR, the reader should consult the following scholarly reviews (e.g. Acierno et al., 1994; DeBell & Jones