Re:Possible suggestions for loss of treatment gains over time with EMDR

I placed Prof. deJongh's post in the wrong place. In short, he was objecting to the review by James Herbert of Hahnemann University that appeared in Medscape, because the review ignores the many positive outcome studies, and distorts the total body of evidence on EMDR to date. That medscape abstract said, "Eye Movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is just the latest in the string of unvalidated therapies that have been promoted for treatment of anxiety and trauma, according to a review by Dr. James Herbert, of MCP Hanhemann University in Philadelphia, and associates"

Here is Dr. de Jongh's response again:

Dear editor:

I complain against your one-sided approach of providing information about EMDR. This is the second time that you distribute negative, based information about this treatment method on your Medscape's MedPulse, while consistently ignoring any positive research article and material that appears about this treatment. I see this as an unscientific approach.

You should know that it is a fact that the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies current treatment guidelines have designated EMDR as an effective treatment for PTSD (Chemtob, Tolin, van der Kolk & Pitman, 2000), while data from a meta-analysis of all psychological and drug treatments for PTSD suggest that "EMDR is effective for PTSD, and that it is more efficient than other treatments" (Van Etten & Taylor, 1998).

How can I expect that the other information on Medscape is not also anti-evidence based? I would advise to stop this policy of discrediting EMDR.

Sincerely,

Ad de Jongh, PhD
University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

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