Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Eye Movement Desensitization And Reprocessing (Emdr) Practitioners’ Beliefs About Memory, Sanne T.L. Houben, Henry Otgaar, Jeffrey Roelofs, Ineke Wessel, Lawrence Patihis, Harald Merckelbach

Faculty Publications

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a widely used treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. The idea behind EMDR is that lateral eye movements may mitigate the emotional impact of traumatic memories. Given the focus on changing patients’ memories, it is important that EMDR practitioners have detailed knowledge about human memory. We explored beliefs and ideas about memory in samples of EMDR practitioners (Study 1: n = 12; Study 2: n = 41), students (Study 1: n =35; Study 2: n = 24), and researchers (Study 2: n = 30). All groups seemed to be aware of the fallibility of …