EMDR as a treatment for long‐term depression: A feasibility study

Abstract

ObjectiveCurrent treatments for long‐term depression – medication and psychotherapy – are effective for some but not all clients. New approaches need to be developed to complement the ones already available. This study was designed to test the feasibility of using an effective post‐traumatic stress disorder treatment for people with long‐term depression.DesignA single‐case experimental design with replications was undertaken as a feasibility study of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) in treating long‐term depression.MethodsThirteen people with recurrent and/or long‐term depression were recruited from primary care mental health services and given standard protocol EMDR for a maximum of 20 sessions. Levels of depression were measured before and after treatment and at follow‐up, clients also rated their mood each day.ResultsEight people engaged with the treatment; seven of these had clinically significant and statistically reliable improvement on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. Daily mood ratings were highly variable both during baseline and intervention.Conclusions EMDR is a feasible treatment for recurrent and/or long‐term depression. Research on treatment efficacy and effectiveness is now required.Practitioner points EMDR may be an effective treatment for depression. EMDR could be considered if first‐line approaches (CBT and counselling) have been tried and failed. EMDR may be particularly helpful for service users with a history of trauma.

Comparison of Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as Adjunctive Treatments for Recurrent Depression: The European Depression EMDR Network (EDEN) Randomized Controlled Trial

“…More recently, other studies have reported evidence of EMDR efficacy in patients with depression ( Hofmann et al, 2014 ; Behnammoghadam et al, 2015 ; Hase et al, 2015 ; Mauna Gauhar, 2016 ), while a specific EMDR therapy protocol for the treatment of depressive disorders has been published ( Hofmann et al, 2016 ). Moreover, a recently published study has shown the feasibility of using EMDR treatment in patients with recurrent and/or long-term depression ( Wood et al, 2017 ).…”

A Treatment-Response Comparison Study of Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Between Standard Treatment of SSRI and Standard Treatment of SSRI Plus Non-dominant Hand-Writing Task in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder

“…The CBT + EMDR group showed more complete remissions and a greater reduction in Beck Depression Inventory scores than the CBT-only group (11). The retrieved researches suggest EMDR as a useful supplementary therapy not only in the treatment of MDD with and without co-concurrent trauma history but also in the case of recurrent, long-term symptomatology and treatment-resistant (TR) depression (10,12). Overall, the studies that applied EMDR in MDD showed a reasonable level of evidence ranging from 2 to 5 on the Sackett Scale.…”

EMDR Treatment for Persistent Post-Concussion Symptoms Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Case Study

“…However, EMDR has continued to demonstrate effectiveness in a number of other conditions involving adverse life events and stress-mediated symptoms (Shapiro, 2014). Conditions of particular relevance to pPCS include depression (Wood et al, 2018), anxiety (Bandelow et al, 2015), panic disorder (Horst et al, 2017), migraine headaches (Marcus, 2008), functional neurological disorder (Cope et al, 2018), sleep disorder (Raboni et al, 2014), and medically unexplained symptoms and somatoform disorder (Van Rood & De Roos, 2009). One paper demonstrated that short EMDR intervention is feasible and potentially effective in the context of the post-concussion "like" symptoms in the emergency room (Gil-Jardiné et al, 2018).…”