Null hypothesis of Rosen and Lohr in article "CAN EYE MOVEMENTS CURE MENTAL AILMENTS?"

The below is Excerpted from the article "CAN EYE MOVEMENTS CURE MENTAL AILMENTS?" by Gerald M. Rosen, PhD and Jeffrey Lohr, PhD. I would be interested in hearing if anyone in this forum who is either trained or does training in EMDR have any comments on the below excerpt? The article can be read in full at

CAN EYE MOVEMENTS CURE MENTAL AILMENTS

"..."... The null hypothesis, which assumes that no difference exists until a statistically significant effect is demonstrated, is the keystone of scientific testing. Nevertheless, the field of psychology recently has seen the null hypothesis turned upside down in the promotion of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR),...

...Meanwhile, several researchers have gone through the laborious effort of randomly assigning patients to EMDR or standard imagery treatment without eye movements. In almost every case, eye movements have provided no additional treatment effect.2,3 When initial studies failed to support EMDR, Shapiro claimed that researchers had not received proper training in the techniques, so their work did not provide a fair test. After researchers took the appropriate workshop, the need for them to have Level II training was introduced despite the fact that no research had been done to justify such a requirement. When studies clearly showed that eye movements were unnecessary, Shapiro shifted the rationale of treatment and offered alternative forms of stimulation such as finger snapping and tapping motions.

What appears to have happened is that Shapiro took existing elements from cognitive-behavior therapies, added the unnecessary ingredient of finger waving, and then took the new technique on the road before science could catch up. Whenever findings failed to support EMDR's claims, a bold new pronouncement was made and the null hypothesis was again turned upside down. The acceptance and proliferation of EMDR by psychologists represents a fundamental shift on their part of basic assumptions about the burden of scientific proof. Before it was demonstrated that eye movements are essential, thousands of professionals started waving their fingers, and it appears they may continue to do so until convinced otherwise. We believe that claims for EMDR should be advanced only after acceptable levels of proof have been achieved. Also, because extraordinary results are claimed, we believe the dictum that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof" should be applied. "

Replies:

Re:Null hypothesis of Rosen and Lohr in article , by Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD, 01/26/03