Re: EMDR for treatment of OCD

There is a special protocol for the use of EMDR with OCD, published by Marcia Whisman, that combines EMDR with the cognitive behavioral treatment of OCD, namely exposure and response prevention.

In exposure and response prevention, the treatment involves the last thing that someone with OCD wants to do, namely, be exposed to their obsessional (often horrific) thoughts while simultaneously being prevented from engaging in their behavioral rituals or compulsions. In traditional exposure and response prevention the patient, after consenting to this procedure, is deliberately maintained in this highly anxious condition until the anxiety spontaneously extinguishes, which is does! The addition of EMDR can help the anxiety to be lowered more rapidly. Once the loop has been broken (obsessional thought causes ritual behavior to lower anxiety) the client no longer has to engage in the ritual to lower anxiety.

You might read, "When Once is Not Enough" by, I think, Foa and Steketee. An EMDR practitioner reading OCD should be familiar with exposure and response prevention and Marcia Whisman's protocol.

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