EMDR FORUM ARCHIVE, 2000
Re:Point/Counterpoint Article Posted Online
Cahill · 10/28/02 at 8:31 PM ET
The dismantling studies done to date may or may not have been done adequately. Either way, it doesn't matter. Let's say they are all indequate and sweep them away. What does that leave us with in terms of of support for the eye movements/bilateral stimulation/dual attention hypothesis? Nothing! So, the point is the same: There is no credible evidence that eye movements, other bilateral stimuliation, or dual attention improves treatment outcome. Morever, even the very best desigend study, with lots of subjects and high treatment fidelity would NEVER be able to prove that eye movements have no effect. Why? Because it is logically impossible to prove the null hypothesis. In other words, you can't prove someting does not exist. Therefore, the burden of proof rests with those who want to assert the alternative hypothesis (i.e., that eye movements work). Stated yet another way, studies that produce null results are ALWAYS ambiguous. It could be that the intervention didn't work OR it could be that some subtle procedural error prevented the research from finding the effect. Put yet ANOTHER way, if I claim that Menehune's exist (sort of like an Hawaiian leprachaun), then it is my burden of proof to show this to be true. You don't have to try and prove they don't exist. All you have to do is demand the evidence from me and if I produce any, scruitinize it very carefully. And don't be fooled by my appeals to my personal (i.e., read "clinical") experience ("I know they exist because I saw them) or by my appeals to authority ("I know they exist because my Kumu Hula [dance teacher] says they exist" i.e., read "because Francine Shapiro says so"). Finally, if the research on EMDR is so poor because it's being done by skeptics, then I suggest that the faithful get involved in doing research. Better to light one candle than curse the darkness. Oddly, I addressed this issue in my review. For those who read my paper but missed it:
"Some proponents of EMDR have questioned the validity of conclusions drawn from many of the group dismantling studies cited above. This has been for reasons related to inadequate treatment fidelity, such as too few sessions for the population. For example, Boudewyns et al. (1993) and Devilly et al. (1998) both treated veterans utilizing only two sessions. A discussion of treatment fidelity by proponents of EMDR can be found in Greenwald (1996), Lipke (1999) and Shapiro (1996). Rosen (1999) offers another alternative perspective. It should be noted, however, that simply identifying limitations of existing research does not justify assuming the results would necessarily have been different, had the researchers just 'done it right.'"
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