EMDR treatment of a 10 year old boy who suffered from continuous overnight waking - A case report

Individuals experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) report insomnia (trouble initiating and maintaining sleep) and recurrent distressing dreams among their most common and distressing symptoms. These sleep disturbances have long been thought to play a central role in PTSD, and research has suggested sleep problems may predict development of PTSD after exposure to trauma. Sleep complaints at one month, but not at one week, posttrauma are a significant predictor of PTSD at 12 months posttrauma (Koren et al. 2002). Children who experienced traumatic surgical operation may develop sleep disorder (SD). Insomnia and nightmares can easily occur. The high frequency of sleep disturbances associated with PTSD and their potential role in the development and course of PTSD highlight the importance of improving sleep among individuals with SD. In this article, we describe sleep disturbances associated with appendectomy, with a focus on insomnia and EMDR (Shapiro 1995) as a treatment for a sleep disorder (SD). In this therapy, a patient selects an image related to a traumatic event and is asked to hold it in mind while engaging in back and forth eye movements that are led by the therapist. After completing a set of eye movements, the patient is directed to note: “What comes up?” such as thoughts, feelings, or other images. The patient then holds whatever was most salient that was noted in mind while another set of eye movements is conducted and so on. Over the course of the session the patient is helped to process the image and desensitize the trauma. In this model, the eye movements serve to relax and distract the patient while confronting painful material related to the trauma as the supportive therapist helps the patient cognitively to make sense of the experiences.

Journal

English

Ivana Trlin
Mevludin Hasanović

Trlin, I., & Hasanović, M. (2018, July). EMDR treatment of a 10 year old boy who suffered from continuous overnight waking - A case report. Psychiatria Danubina, 30(Supplement 5), S271-S275. Presentation at the 1st EMDR Conference (2017, November) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo