The Effectiveness Of EMDR Therapy For PTSD

By Jody Leach


There are several events that could cause trauma to a number of people. There are some who were assaulted by other people or were physically abused. There are those who encountered tragic accidents such as plane crashes and car accidents. Someone that they love so much may have died because they were sick or because of other causes. Soldiers who have gone to war has enough combat experiences.

For this, a post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD may be developed in an individual. For this, an eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EMDR therapy for PTSD has been used. This is one of the ways in treating the said disorder. An individual will need to know several things about this therapy to help keep him informed about it.

One can notice several changes in the behavior of a certain person who experienced trauma. He may be very irritable with even the slightest movements. He may have difficulty sleeping at night. He may be having nightmares and flashbacks of the event from time to time. He may also find it very difficult to concentrate on a certain task that he is asked to perform.

The said therapy involves eight stages. In the first stage, assessments will be made by the therapist about the stressful events of the clientele. There are things that the clientele might want to forget and he will have to talk about them to his doctor. He and the practitioner will have to set goals that they want to be achieved at the conclusion of the therapy.

In phase two, the stressful experiences which occurred to them will be talked upon. The patients will have to relive those moments and narrate them to the medical professionals. However, the clients need to be emotionally stable so that they can proceed with this endeavor. The practitioners can use a number of relaxation techniques to make sure that they are stable emotionally before they continue.

In the third until the sixth phases, the beliefs, images, emotions and sensations related to the experiences are discussed. This will be done by the patient together with following the finger of the professional which is moving back and forth. They will have to repeat this activity until the client is not stressed anymore when discussing the events.

In phase number seven, the stressful experiences and anything about it should be written down by the clienteles. In phase eight, which is the last one, there will be an evaluation of the changes of the behaviors of these clients. Usually, this would mark the end of the therapy.

The effectiveness of this method has been the subject of several researches and studies done by several medical groups. There are studies which prove that this method is really effective when treating traumatized patients. However, there are also studies which would say that it does not have superiority over other therapies being administered to traumatized people.

Indeed some individuals were able to alleviate their lives using this method. However, as to how effective this is, it is not certainly clear as of this moment. What is important is that the purpose of this therapy is to help other people in letting go of the experiences which brought them stress and are hindering them from living their lives.




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