Posted by badhaircut on June 14, 2005, at 10:53:14
In reply to New therapist, new therapy, posted by cockeyed on June 14, 2005, at 2:06:29
I know "choking." That's a good way to put it. It may be that EMDR techniques applied in the moment may help you get past the choking, perhaps mostly as a distraction from the situation so you can take action despite starting to "choke." But you may want to reconsider even trying EMDR.
This is from Aetna insurance:
"A randomized controlled study by Pitman (1996) has shown that EMDR's most distinctive feature (visual tracking) is unnecessary and is irrelevant to whatever benefits the patient may receive. Furthermore, an article by Macklin et al. (2000) reported that at the 5-year follow-up evaluation of Vietnam veterans with chronic PTSD treated with EMDR, the modest therapeutic benefits observed immediately after EMDR were lost, and there was an overall worsening of PTSD symptoms over the 5-year in both the EMDR-treated groups and the non-treated control group."
When EMDR has been compared to any other kind of therapy, it's been shown to be a useless addition. Some think it a harmless addition, but I think that an active but useless component is too likely to create mischief.
That could certainly be true if EMDR "recovers memories" of abuse. Recovered memories are the among the least scientifically supported outcomes of therapy. Even on this board, you can read that recovered memories are very upsetting and don't seem to lead very often to directly improved lives. Why risk it?
You can read Scott Lilienfeld's "EMDR Treatment: Less Than Meets the Eye?" at
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/emdr.html-bhc
poster:badhaircut
thread:512406
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050606/msgs/512533.html