The Effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in Reducing Anxiety

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), is a form of psychotherapy developed to resolve the problems of those individuals who suffer from trauma related disorders such as exposure to distressing events and memories, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, death of one’s beloved and other emotional disorders. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of EMDR in reducing anxiety in university students. In so doing, thirty female university students were selected from Islamic Azad University, Kerman Branch by simple random sampling method. Then they were divided into experimental and control groups, each consisting of 15 subjects. All subjects were initially assessed in terms of anxiety levels. After that the experimental group participated in 3 ninety-minute sessions of EMDR and their anxiety level were assessed. The results of the covariance analysis of anxiety scores indicated that anxiety level of experimental group who underwent treatment was higher than that of the control group.