A Brief History of EMDR Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, therapy has been growing in popularity substantially in recent years. Originally designed to treat PTSD, it has recently found popularity in treating a variety of disorders including anxiety, depression, and much more.
I offer online EMDR therapy in California myself, and I think it’s important to understand where a therapeutic model comes from. Understanding the history of EMDR can help us fully understand the technique, the claims, and the context from which it comes.
The Discovery of EMDR
The story goes that in 1987 Dr. Francine Shapiro noticed during a walk that certain eye movements seemed to help reduce emotional intensity when it came to distressing thoughts. This brought her to be curious about eye movements and emotional processing. It’s worth noting that this story comes from her, and some have expressed doubt of its veracity.
Research and the Birth of EMDR
In the late 1980s, Dr. Shapiro published a paper called Efficacy of Eye Movement Desensitization Procedure in the Treatment of Traumatic Memories. With 22 subjects who had experienced trauma (Vietnam war veterans, sexual assault, emotional abuse), EMD (the R was added later as it evolved) was used. This study became the foundation for EMDR, as the intervention substantially helped the subjects reduce anxiety and desensitize to the traumatic memories.
The Evolution of EMDR
In the early 90’s, Shapiro added in the R for reprocessing. This was due to her understanding that the eye movement wasn’t just desensitizing the patients, it was actually helping them reprocess the trauma in a new way. Anxiety wasn’t just decreasing; memories were actually changing.
In the mid 1990’s, the eight phases of EMDR therapy were codified. Dr. Shapiro sought to systematize EMDR so it could be both practiced and studied more widely. The goal of EMDR became clear: to help the brain reconnect traumatic memories with more adaptive information.
Widespread Recognition
In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, more and more research was done on EMDR. It became much more popular as a first-line treatment for PTSD, and training programs began popping up. Additionally the World Health Organization, American Psychological Assocation, and International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies recognized EMDR as an effective evidence-based treatment for PTSD during these years.
Moving Beyond PTSD
In the last ten or fifteen years, EMDR has been used to treat a variety of disorders. It’s commonly touted to treat anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, and many more things. Although EMDR was already proven effective at treating PTSD, these new investigations partially have led to the dismissal of EMDR as pseudoscience.
The reason for this is simple: EMDR is not very effective at treating these other conditions. As one review noted, “available evidence suggests that EMDR therapy improves trauma-associated symptoms and has a minor effect on the primary disorders.”
Another review found that EMDR had a positive effect with addictions, eating disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and more. But, the primary benefit was in improvement of trauma-associated symptoms.
What this means in plain terms is that the research thus far finds that EMDR truly is most effective for trauma. When it comes to comorbid disorders, EMDR can help work with the trauma-related symptoms, but may not be the most effective form of therapy for the primary disorder.
The Future of EMDR
As with any therapuetic model, the future of EMDR is quite exciting. We may one day better understand memory reconsolidation, gain more clarity into its benefits through future research, and see exactly how EDMR works in the brain with advances in neuroimaging.
