Use of EMDR in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Case Series

Use of EMDR in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Case Series Introduction: Various studies have demonstrated that cognitive behavioural therapy with exposure response prevention is the most effective method to treat obsessive-compulsive disorders. However, 15-40% of patients do not respond to it; they cannot be motivated to undergo treatment, drop out, or experience persisting difficulties in regulating their emotions. In this article, EMDR is presented as an additional method for these specific problems. Method: Three case studies are reported and descriptively analysed. Special focus is placed on the patients' motivation and on how they regulate their emotions. Different ways of applying EMDR in the course of psychological treatment are described as well. EMDR before confrontation therapy was applied in the first patient (checking behaviour); the second patient (compulsive thoughts) was first treated with confrontation therapy and then with EMDR; in the third patient, EMDR and confrontation therapy were applied alternately. Results: All three patients showed a reduction of symptoms by about 60%. They experienced EMDR as a useful and motivating method. Furthermore, they felt encouraged to deal with their emotions in additional psychological treatments. Confrontation therapy markedly reduced OCD symptoms in two of the patients. Discussion: EMDR could be a useful augmentation method in treating patients with OCD, but further controlled and randomised studies are required to validate this conclusion.