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Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing as treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma: Randomised clinical trial (The British Journal of Psychiatry)

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Home / Resources / Childhood Trauma / Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing as treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma: Randomised clinical trial (The British Journal of Psychiatry)

Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing as treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma: Randomised clinical trial

Imagery rescripting and EMDR treatments were found to be effective in treating PTSD symptoms arising from childhood trauma.


Article Abstract

“Background: Investigation of treatments that effectively treat adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood experiences (Ch-PTSD) and are well tolerated by patients is needed to improve outcomes for this population.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two trauma-focused treatments, imagery rescripting (ImRs) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR), for treating Ch-PTSD.

Method: We conducted an international, multicentre, randomised clinical trial, recruiting adults with Ch-PTSD from childhood trauma before 16 years of age. Participants were randomised to treatment condition and assessed by blind raters at multiple time points. Participants received up to 12 90-min sessions of either ImRs or EMDR, biweekly.

Results: A total of 155 participants were included in the final intent-to-treat analysis. Drop-out rates were low, at 7.7%. A generalised linear mixed model of repeated measures showed that observer-rated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms significantly decreased for both ImRs (d = 1.72) and EMDR (d = 1.73) at the 8-week post-treatment assessment. Similar results were seen with secondary outcome measures and self-reported PTSD symptoms. There were no significant differences between the two treatments on any standardised measure at post-treatment and follow-up.

Conclusions: ImRs and EMDR treatments were found to be effective in treating PTSD symptoms arising from childhood trauma, and in reducing other symptoms such as depression, dissociation and trauma-related cognitions. The low drop-out rates suggest that the treatments were well tolerated by participants. The results from this study provide evidence for the use of trauma-focused treatments for Ch-PTSD.”

—Description from publisher

Article Access

Open Access

Boterhoven de Haan, K. L., Lee, C. W., Fassbinder, E., van Es, S. M., Menninga, S., Meewisse, M. L., Rijkeboer, M., Kousemaker, M., & Arntz, A. (2020). Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing as treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma: Randomised clinical trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 217(5), 609-615. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.158

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Basic Info Collapse

Date
September 7, 2020

Creator(s)
Katrina L. Boterhoven de Haan, Christopher W. Lee, Eva Fassbinder

Contributor(s)
Saskia M. van Es, Simone Menninga, Marie-Louise Meewisse, Marleen Rijkeboer, Margriet Kousemaker, Arnoud Arntz

Topics
Childhood Trauma, PTSD

Practice & Methods
Comparative Studies

More Info Collapse

Extent
7 pages

Publisher
Cambridge University Press

Rights
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

APA Citation
Boterhoven de Haan, K. L., Lee, C. W., Fassbinder, E., van Es, S. M., Menninga, S., Meewisse, M. L., Rijkeboer, M., Kousemaker, M., & Arntz, A. (2020). Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing as treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma: Randomised clinical trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 217(5), 609-615. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2020.158

Audience
EMDR Therapists, Other Mental Health Professionals

Language
English

Content Type
Article, Peer-Reviewed, RCT

Access Type
External Resource, Open Access

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