Effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in the Reduction of Posttroumatic Stress Disordered Sexual Victims

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is characterized by a set of characteristic symptoms (syndrome) that are characterized following exposure to traumatic events. Psychological treatments about PTSD consist of behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, and hypnotherapy. One of the relatively modern psychotherapy strategies is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, in which the patient focuses on the lateral movements of clinician’s finger while imagining the traumatic event in his/her mind. It is believed that this method is regarded as efficient as other therapeutic strategies for PTSD or maybe more effective. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) method in the reduction of symptoms of PTSD caused by rape. Therefore, in a single-subject study with multiple-baselines, the therapeutic process was performed on 3 subjects. They completed the MCCP posttraumatic stress disorder and SCL-90-R questionnaires in treatment base-line stage and at the end of the first, second, third, and the last session. In addition, they completed the questionnaires after the treatment in the follow-up period. In all scales, subjecs scores were lower in the treatment stage than base-line.It could be concluded that the treatment based on eye movement desensitization and reprocessing has been effective in the reduction of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder caused by tape.