EMDR with children who have an earthquake phobia

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) psychotherapy method was applied to 12 children who have felt the Marmara Earthquake, heard terrible noises, and have witnessed the panic around them and the scenes in the media. The purpose of the study is to help the children who have earthquake phobia, to increase their coping skills by desensitizing-reprocessing their traumatic memories causing the symptoms and to enable them to go back to their healthy lives. After 1-3 EMDR sessions, a significant decrease was observed in the cases’ symptoms. Their level of SUDs dropped from 6-10 to 0-1. All children moved from clinical to normal levels on the IES-8, CROPS and PROPS. Controlled studies are recommended.

Conference

English

Umran Korkmazlar

Korkmazlar, U. (2001, September). EMDR with children who have an earthquake phobia. Presentation at the 31st Annual Congress of European Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (EABCT), Istanbul, Turkey