EMDR Therapy Quarterly

EMDR Publications Database

The EMDR Publications Database has been developed collaboratively using the expertise of the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR) and is provided as a free resource for Association members. The number of members signing up to use the database has increased to almost 800, and hopefully, as reports of its usefulness spread, more of you will use it as a resource to support your clinical and research work. You can learn how to access the database here in the member’s area of the website.

The EMDR Publications Database is a collection of peer-reviewed research and dissertations/theses focusing on EMDR. It contains 1981 references, many of which have access to the full text.  The references are categorised in the database by keywords or tags relating to the clinical area and study type – allowing for easy browsing. The database can also be searched by terms of interest.

The most recent update to the database was in October 2024, and 38 new publications have been added. The search was conducted on the following international databases: MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, and PTSDpubs. 

These new additions can be easily viewed by clicking on the ‘NEW’ tag in the EMDR database. Within the NEW tag, you can then select further tags of interest to see what has recently been added for specific topics and research types.

New publications by type

Research/publication type tag	Number of new publications added
Non-English language	6
Observational studies	6 (3 German, 2 Spanish, 1 Dutch)
Trials	5
Systematic reviews	5 (including 1 protocol)
Qualitative research	2
Other	6

Five new RCTs have been added this month in the topics of:

• Paediatric cancer patients and their families (Zucchetti et al., 2024) Italy
• Refugees with PTSD (van Heemstra et al., 2024) Netherlands
• Parents of children with autism (Rashidi et al., 2024) Iran
• Traumatic and obsessive symptoms during COVID-19 quarantine (Miccoli & Poli, 2024) Italy
• Use of G-TEP in an outpatient hospital setting (Stingl et al., 2024) Germany.

Two publications from the UK have been added to the database this month, both on the theme of trauma post-life-threatening medical events:

• (Clarke et al., 2024) (University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust). This is a thematic analysis of experiences of psychological therapy following critical illness and intensive care
• (Bates et al., 2024) (University of Southampton). This is a protocol for a Cochrane review of EMDR for survivors of life-threatening events.

New publication by an EMDR UK member

A pilot study on the effectiveness of online EMDR with Syrian Refugee women has been published in Frontiers in Public Health (Hamid et al., 2024). Funded by Trauma Aid UK and supported logistically by Mercy Without Limits (an organisation based in Turkey) the study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. E-therapy was provided to 83 Syrian female refugees scattered throughout the world between 2021 and 2022. All but one participant showed a reduction in PTSD symptoms below ‘caseness’ by the end of the intervention, though further research with a control group will be needed.

This is an important piece of work, not only because of the benefits to the participants, who would otherwise have been unable to afford therapy, but because it continued the development of the therapists. Matthew Wilcockson, one of the authors said that the therapists “are well on the way to becoming consultants, which will provide a long-term structure for peer-led EMDR therapy within this community. This research also supports the use of EMDR as a culture free treatment option, because the client-led processing appears to bypass the complexities of western language, models and approaches that are recognised as obstacles for many clients from marginalised groups.”

New publications by topic

Topic tag	Number of new publications added
Children and adolescents	8
PTSD	8
Trauma	7

Other topics are included in the EMDR Publications Database. If you are interested in a topic that does not have a tag, you can enter it into the search box to retrieve references. Please see our videos for more information.