Your Premise is Wrong

There are so many inaccuracies and distortions in here I'll have to take them one by one. Some of them are old familiar ones and some are new here.

Q. Why is EMDR training cloaked in secrecy?
A. It's not. There has been considerable effort to make sure the same standardized treatment has been taught in the workshops, which originally were offered only by the EMDR Institute. After a few years, a number of university and professional school programs/individuals have obtained approval to teach EMDR.

Q. CBT and every other valid therapy is not only available in step by step manuals any one can buy, its being taught at the high school level.
A. EMDR is laid out in full in Shapiros book, now in its second edition, and has been since 1995 with the first edition. However, highly seasoned mental health professionals find it hard to learn this complex procedure from a book, having many questions and needing supervised practical experience, so they prefer to take the training in person.

Q. I don't buy that EMDR is more difficult ot administer than other treatment due to the wide variety of users (BA and under).
A. I think you are misinformed here, as above. EMDR is only taught in the workshops to licensed mental health professionals. This is because of the potential to do harm with this procedure, if, for example, it is used for individuals not appropriate to the procedure, if the client is not appropriate prepared for the procedure, or if the clinicians doesn't know what to do in the middle when things get thorny. Suicide attempts can occur when appropriate protocol is not followed.

Q. If it was made free to the public, I would see if it was appropriate and valid and if so I'd use it in my practice when needed. The pay to practice and learn EMDR just makes it harder to accept it.
A. Since it takes 5 days (in two parts) for the course, and people are ever trying to put more days onto it because of the density and criticality of the content, I don't know who would pay for the free publication of the training.

Q. ....Please advertise it. Send out videos and manuals to therapists.
A. And if this were possible, just who should pay for this effort? It isn't possible by the way, its too complex, whether you believe it or not.

Q. "pay to play" ...is too junk science to be taken seriously.
A. Is that why the American Psychological Association and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies have said that EMDR is a effective treatment for PTSD??? How do you think anybody learns anything in this field one they are out of school -- through workshops, that's why continuing education is required. Workshops always charge a fee, of course.

EMDR's workshop fees are proportionate to the length of the workshop and its fees are not extraordinary at all. Additionally EMDR workshops have something other workshops don't typically have -- in addition to the instructor, there is one hands-on facilitator for each group of nine trainees to make sure people learn this complex procedure properly. This is expensive, and the workshop fees aren't particularly high when you factor in this aspect.

Q. PTSD is up there in terms of severity of illness. For EMDR to be the first line of treatment for some therapists fort his very serious disorder, it raises some concern.
A. If we have someone come in with PTSD (single incident adult onset) EMDR therapists can cure the PTSD in very few, many times one or two, sessions. The catch there is that most people with PTSD have more complex trauma histories, however, which can extend treatment length considerably, and which is where some of the complexity and risk comes in, and why we have to be careful, and why we have a stepwise procedure to ensure safe and effective use of EMDR for this vulnerable population.

Q. ....snake oil....sunday morning TV promises of salvation...
A. You speak like someone who doesn't practice clinically, and certainly like someone with no exposure to EMDR. Perhaps you'd benefit from reviewing the postings on this forum and its archives so that your comments benefit from some information and experience, rather than a preemptive conclusion that is based upon no review of the literature.

Replies:

Re:Your Premise is Wrong, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe PhD, 02/03/03

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

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