Re: new article on EMDR

Sandra,
Your post is very compelling. You appear to have had excellent training and experience. I wanted to make a couple of comments about your post.

1). Any time we ask people that have experienced horribles events to relive them or think about them pain may result. However, I must respectfully question your characterization of CBT as being painful and arduous for the patient and the clinician. If you are able I was hoping that you could clarify what you meant when you said that it was painful for the clinician. Also, if you are able, can you briefly explain what you feel makes EMDR less painful for the patient then CBT? Thanks in advance.

2) I really don't think that myself or Brian or any one else here questioning EMDR are "spreading misinformation to scare people away". I think that the readers are quite capable of drawing their own conclusions and won't be "scared away" by a critic or two.

3) I would love for EMDR to work perfectly, above that of any other treatment. I don't particularly enjoy arguing a particular side of this debate. I take no pleasure in arguing with the creator of a treatment, someone who has worked passionately to develop it. I am the first to commend her on her attempts to empirically validate EMDR, something that advocates of other questionable treatments (TFT etc) have not bothered to do. If the extraordinary claims of EMDR were consistently backed with extraordinary data, I swear to you that I would personally apoligize to anyone who felt deserved it, grab my check book, and be first in line to be trained in every "level". Further, CBT is far from being a panacea. I suspect (and hope) that something new will come along in the future and replace CBT just as it replaced others. But, for right now for many problems, it seems to be the best thing we have. This reminds me of a great quote from whom I forget but I will paraphrase "know all theories, love a few, wed none". This has strongly guided me personally. Just as I feel that Dr. Shapiro has lost scientific objectivity by becoming completely enmeshed in her theory, some CBT researchers have as well. They begin to interpret the data in ways that favor their line of research and promptly argue against anyone who would disconfirm.

4) Lastly, if anecdotal evidence were sufficient in science we could dispense with the time-consuming and costly methods that we employ to test treatments. The plural of anecdotes is not facts. This is why we have science and the scientific method. There are plenty of therapies and treatments that have now been relegated to the fringe or obscurity that had competent well-educated people swearing by them.

Thanks,
Don

Replies:

Re: new article on EMDR, by Sandra Paulsen, Ph.D., 2/18/00 Re: Scared Away, by , 2/18/00 Don't Be Scared Away, by Living Example That EMDR Works, 2/18/00 Re: Don't Be Scared Away, by Deb K, 2/18/00 Re: Don't Be Scared Away, by , 2/19/00 Re: Don't Be Scared Away, by Sandra Paulsen, Ph.D., 2/19/00 Re: Don't Be Scared Away, by Shapiro, 2/22/00

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