Re:Eye Movements vs. Fixed Eye Conditions

There is a famous quote, if I remember correctly, by Paul Meehl, about knowing more than we can say.

Yes, the jury is stil clearly out and some of these thoughts about bilateral stimulation are clearly hypotheses based on research in other fields.

The comment with regard to unscientific was not directly targetted on your comment, but for the most part reflects my frustration with research that purports to be scientific, and the hypotheses are certainly scientific, but they do in fact in some cases pursue the null hypothesis (which IMO is unscientific), or they are to narrow in their outlook in that they ignore evidence from the field of neuroscience that certain types of eye fixation have similar effects to eye movements. Thus, it is not surprising to get null findings, especially if sample sizes are insufficient (which is poor science).

There are a whole bunch of issues related to this in that EMDR comes not out of mainstream psychological theory, and apart from its admitted apparent hokiness has thus not been seen as a valid treatment approach within academic psychology. This has had repercussions on the kind of research conducted, as well as funding provided for such research.

All I would expect from critics is to keep an open mind, even if the mechanics of the EMDR treatment approach appear ludicruous at first. With some reading in the neurosciences, the strange sensory stimulation that is part of EMDR certainly seem to be a lot less ludicrous for me today, then when I initially encountered EMDR.

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