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Comment by nickbarnwell | Hacker News Reader

There is very limited evidence that the bilateral stimulation has _any_ impact on treatment outcomes [0].

EMDR is PE with a marketing machine behind it. To quote Robert Ursano, a prominent figure in trauma research and treatment at the VA, “I concur with the view that what's new about EMDR is not helpful and what's helpful is not new,"[1].

There is a disturbing trend of EMDR being billed as a panacea by commercial training institutes without educating clients about equally or more efficacious treatments (PE, CPT) that are studied primarily in academic centres.

0: Chemtob et al., (2000), Davidson and Parker (2001) 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/20...

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You are correct, but I think you are overlooking a peripheral advantage: (relative) fidelity to the model.

I have sent countless patients to therapists purporting to do DBT, CBT, PE, and others - only to review those sessions with them and hear about poorly delivered supportive therapy with questionable boundaries.

EMDR seems to be delivered with something approximating the actual therapeutic model as studied somewhere around 50% of the time. Which, sadly, is pretty good.

Can you elaborate on what you've seen as far as "questionable boundaries" is concerned?

I went to a licensed therapist who insisted I call my GP to obtain antibiotics for a cold. I explained to her that antibiotics arent effective on viral illnesses, she insisted that yellow phlegm indicates "an infection" this antibiotics would be effective. I am also anaemic due to a genetic condition, and the anemia is mild but basically untreatable. She suggested I look into treating it with "herbs."

That sort of boundary crossing?

I stopped going to her, obviously. Pisses me off i actually paid her.

That's not what I had in mind, but that is also a problem. What I meant by "questionable boundaries" is being more of a hired friend than a therapist, and talking about themselves and their own lives more than they should. Poorly trained therapists tend to take the side of the patient without exception, and rarely challenge the behaviors that can cause them problems. Therapy should feel challenging, and feel like work, at least most of the time. If it's someone telling you that you can do no wrong, that's not useful.

Thanks, you've put into words my somewhat bad experience with therapy.

Do you have any experience with Schema Therapy practitioners?

> EMDR is PE with a marketing machine behind it

What is "PE" in this context?

Googling suggests Prolonged Exposure (PE), and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): https://deploymentpsych.org/blog/staff-voices-pe-or-cpt%E2%8...

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