A response to the meta-analysis by Albright & Thyer: What best serves our troops?

Comments on Does EMDR reduce post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology in combat veterans? by David L. Albright and Bruce Thyer (see record 2010-02408-001). As an Army Chaplain and psychotherapist for 30 years, I have used a variety of psychotherapy modalities to treat soldiers and military families in various combat zones, as well as military installations in the United States. In this capacity I have found eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) to be efficacious in the treatment of both trauma and life adjustment issues. In my present position as Director of Soldier Center, Clarksville, TN, I use EMDR on a daily basis to treat soldiers and veterans recovering from combat trauma. Based on my extensive experience in the successful application of EMDR, I am dismayed by the pre-suppositional bias against and potentially serious misrepresentations of EMDR that are evident in the Albright and Thyer article from the authors' very first mention of it. The authors have done a great disservice to clinicians, as well as to veterans, with their paper. In summary, the best way to serve our troops is to urge comparative research between EMDR and the extant cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatments. Our men and women in uniform deserve the best treatment possible. EMDR has amply demonstrated its efficacy with multiple trauma populations and should not be minimized because of subjective biases and misinformation.

Journal

English

E. C. Hurley

Hurley, E. C. (2010, November). A response to the meta-analysis by Albright & Thyer: What best serves our troops? Behavioral Interventions, 25(4), 349-353. doi:10.1002/bin.314