New Sensibility in Science

• More on eye movements by Francine Shapiro, 11/14/97
  • Study Why EMDR Works by Gil Levin, 11/15/97
    
    

I agree with you. And I love the statement that a new sensibility is needed in science. There are certainly many problems with the practice of a pure science that does not place the problem in a real world context. For instance, one of the problems I've observed is the way in which science in psychology also does not take clinical reality into account. To try to determine what about EMDR makes it work some researchers have tried to do component analyses using only one or two sessions with multiply traumatized combat veterans. They forget that each veteran generally has many memories to be addressed so you cannot see the large changes needed to discriminate and weight multiple components in that short a time--especially when you use global measures (like personality inventories). There are so many factors that must be taken into account when studying a clinical procedure that it is mandatory that practicing therapists be involved in the research process in order to make sure that the findings are really applicable to the real world--and that they are being interpreted correctly.

You are also so right about the potential. Bessel van der Kolk has been using EMDR as a treatment tool to study the way the brain is affected by trauma. Specifically, having a subject with PTSD bring to mind the event and using SPECT scans to determine what anatomical structures light up. Then after the three EMDR treatment sessions have eliminated the PTSD the subject brings up the same memory. So far he has found increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate. Finding that post-treatment (but not pre-treatment) the anterior cingulate comes on-line was previously unsuspected. This type of research is opening up many new theoretical avenues that may eventually have direct effect on specific treatments. I believe he is the type of researcher that has this new sensibility and keeps his eye on the alleviation of suffering.

Given the level of suffering worldwide, the fact that excluding studies in EMDR and pharmaceuticals there have been only eight controlled published treatment outcome studies on diagnosed PTSD clients is very telling. If that's not an argument for a new sensibility in science, I don't know what is.

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