“Stepping into the trauma memory scene” with EMDR: What is it like for adults with psychosis?
A qualitative study of ten participants interviewed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to enable in-depth exploration of experiences of EMDR targeting trauma memories in psychosis.
Article Abstract
“Background: Psychosis is increasingly being viewed as another form of complex post-trauma experience. Despite this, psychosis-specific trauma therapies remain underdeveloped due to fears they may cause stress. Treating complex trauma has particularly been avoided in psychosis. Eye Movement and Desensitisation Therapy (EMDR) is argued to be a theoretically compatible treatment for psychotic phenomena by storing distressing trauma memories into a more adaptive state. Qualitative research exploring the acceptability of this novel, potentially controversial, treatment, is limited.
Methods: Ten participants were interviewed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to enable in-depth exploration of experiences of EMDR targeting trauma memories in psychosis.
Results: Three Group Experiential Themes (Readiness, An Extraordinary Process, Transformations) and nine subthemes emerged. The themes arose like a journey, representing the different stages of the EMDR experience, including engagement, the unique EMDR process and the perceived impacts of EMDR on participants’ lives.
Discussion: The results are connected to existing EMDR theory and its tailored application to psychosis. The implications for clinical practice and future research for this novel treatment approach are discussed.”
—Description from publisher
Article Access
Open Access
Hardwick, A., Colbert, S., & Lavender, T. (2025). “Stepping into the trauma memory scene” with EMDR: What is it like for adults with psychosis? Psychosis, 1-17. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1080/17522439.2025.2526059
Date
July 7, 2025
Creator(s)
Aline Hardwick, Susannah Colbert, Tony Lavender
Topics
Psychosis/Schizophrenia
Extent
17 pages
Publisher
Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Rights
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this articlehas been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
APA Citation
Hardwick, A., Colbert, S., & Lavender, T. (2025). "Stepping into the trauma memory scene" with EMDR: What is it like for adults with psychosis? Psychosis, 1-17. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1080/17522439.2025.2526059
Audience
EMDR Therapists, Other Mental Health Professionals
Language
English
Content Type
Article, Peer-Reviewed
Access Type
External Resource, Open Access
