A school-based EMDR intervention for children who witnessed the Pirelli Building airplane crash in Milan, Italy

This article describes a group intervention using a variant of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing called the butterfly hug. The treatment was provided to 236 children in an elementary school in Milan, Italy, after a small plane crashed into the Pirelli building, a skyscraper adjacent to the school, causing severe damage, fire, and loss of life. After this incident most of the children developed symptoms of PTSD, disrupting school function. A team of three psychologists, working with school teachers, provided this 90-minute intervention to each school class. The treatment reduced reported symptoms of distress during the treatment process, and appeared to result in changed patterns of observable behavior, which were maintained at 4-month follow-up. Given the dearth of research on post-disaster treatment and the limitations of this naturalistic evaluation, future rigorous study is suggested.

Journal

English

Isabel Fernandez
E. Gallinari
A. Lorenzetti

Fernandez, I., Gallinari, E., & Lorenzetti, A. (2004, Spring-Summer). A school-based EMDR intervention for children who witnessed the Pirelli Building airplane crash in Milan, Italy. Journal of Brief Therapy, 2(2), 129-136