Re: the discussion continues

I heard about and just reviewed the discussion on this subject and wanted to put voice in here as well. I was trained in the University of Hawaii's program that strongly emphasized cognitive behavioral approaches in the 1980's. My dissertation and first years of practice, and many conference papers were all from a cognitive behavioral perspective. I specialized in the treatment of anxiety disorders and trauma using cognitive behavioral methods (a la Meichenbaum, Foa). I used exposure and cognitive restructuring to treat PTSD and had a large clinical practice at the Pacific Institute of Behavioral Medicine in Honolulu, in the early 1990's, following an internship at the Veterans Administration in Honolulu, including the Vietnam Vet Center. I was also a staff psychologist and then Acting Chief psychologist at the Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, which had an anxiety disorders specialty treatment program.

In short, the cognitive behavioral treatment of PTSD was effortful and painful for both clinician and patient, and results were slow and modest.

Then I found out about EMDR and everything changed.

The results were so much more expeditious and straightforward, elegant and fruitful, that it shook my theoretical foundations to the core. Suddenly I was causing relatively rapid cures (tho for complex PTSD the path was slower, but still faster than with other methods).

Regarding cognitive behavioral theorists/ researchers/ clinicians who refuse to see the truth: It continues to amaze me that people can look right at a gorilla having fallen out of a tree and say, 1) it isn't happening, or 2) let's measure the gorilla with a micrometer. The treatment effects are dramatic, and the sooner people stop spreading misinformation to scare people away needlessly, the better the world's traumatized patients will be, because they'll be getting the most appropriate, organic, and cost-effective treatment.

A final cautionary note: there is a lot of undiagnosed dissociation out there, which requires a special protocol, available in the literature. Any EMDR's with bad outcomes that I have heard about have been when clinicians used this power tool without appropriate training, and broke open dissociative defenses without having a strategy in place to assist the patient through it.

Clinicians and patients alike -- EMDR's effects are real and potent, much more so than CBT alone.

Replies:

There are no replies to this message.

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.