The range and diversity of post traumatic growth following EMDR for involvement in a road traffic accident

This paper is a further progress report (see Blore, Farrell & Clifford 2008; Blore 2007) on data analysis from N=12 interviews from an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study into Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) following successful EMDR treatment. The second round of hermeneutic analysis identified eight categories of PTG outcomes. Five of the categories: New Directions in Life; Enhancement of Social Development; Enhancement of Personal Development; Appreciation of Life and Spiritual & Philosophical Development, are consistent with the five factor analysis categories of the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI)(Tedeschi & Calhoun 1996). The remaining three categories are: Development of ‘Success Heuristic’; Expression of Positive Emotions; and Growth Aspirations which can be seen as yet-to-be-attained PTG. One implication of these categories is that positive outcomes of EMDR are consistently being under-reported in the scientific literature simply because evidence-based practice is focussed solely on reducing negative symptomatology.

Conference

English

David C. Blore

Blore, D. C. (2009, March). The range and diversity of post traumatic growth following EMDR for involvement in a road traffic accident. Symposium conducted at the EMDR Association UK & Ireland Annual Conference, Manchester, UK