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. If you still haven’t accessed this useful resource, you can find out how to in the members’ area of the EMDR UK website.

The EMDR Publications Database is a collection of peer-reviewed research and dissertations/theses focusing on EMDR. It contains over 1900 references, many of which have access to the full text. The references are categorised by ‘tags’ (keywords) 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 July 2025, when 40 new publications were added. The search to populate the database was conducted on the following international databases: MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, and PTSDpubs.

Newly added publications can be easily viewed by clicking on the ‘NEW’ tag. 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.

A selected summary of recent research added to the EMDR Publications Database

Systematic reviews

Eight systematic reviews have been added to the publications database this month, including the one conducted by a team in the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield, which was funded by EMDR UK (Simpson et al., 2025). This review updated the evidence review conducted for the NICE PTSD guidelines 2018. Published in the British Journal of Psychology, this article presents the findings of the systematic review of EMDR for the prevention and treatment of PTSD in adults. EMDR treatment was found to be significantly more effective than waitlist/usual care and comparable in effectiveness to trauma-focused CBT. The review also includes cost-effectiveness and EMDR was the most cost-effective intervention in a comparison of 10 psychological treatments for adults with PTSD. However, it must be noted that there are limitations to this review, including the small sample sizes in the included RCTs and most studies being assessed as having a moderate or high risk of bias.

In addition to the EMDR UK-funded review, further secondary research has been added to the database:

• A review of 55 meta-analyses on psychological interventions for adult PTSD found that EMDR (and trauma-focused CBT) demonstrates beneficial long-term effects extending beyond one month post-treatment (Kip et al., 2025).
• A systematic review and meta-analysis focusing on PTSD diagnosis loss reports that EMDR showed the highest proportion of diagnosis loss among trauma-focused treatments, though with substantial heterogeneity (Milligan et al., 2025).
• A scoping review is currently being conducted on the use of EMDR in the treatment of birth trauma; the review protocol has been added to the EMDR publications database (O’Donovan et al., 2025).
• For phantom limb pain, EMDR is identified as one of a number of effective psychotherapeutic modalities, acknowledging that the combined use of multiple modalities is more beneficial than standalone approaches (Santoso et al., 2025).
• In the context of prolonged grief disorder, while CBT remains predominant, innovations combining CBT with EMDR have shown promise, particularly for trauma-related grief (Srivastava et al., 2025).
• In a systematic review and meta-analysis of trauma-focused treatments for refugee children, EMDR demonstrated a large pooled pre-post effect size in reducing posttraumatic stress symptoms in this population (Velu et al., 2025).
• For earthquake-related PTSD in adults, psychological interventions, including EMDR, are associated with good outcomes. Of sixteen included studies, three evaluated EMDR (one randomised, controlled group field study of EMDR vs. waitlist, and two non-controlled studies) (Woods et al., 2025).

RCTs

Five new randomised controlled trials have been added to the publications database this quarter:

• For patients with hypertension, EMDR was found to significantly improve symptoms of anxiety, as well as positively impact blood pressure and heart rate variability immediately post-intervention vs. routine care (Chen et al., 2025).
• In individuals with co-occurring post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorder, EMDR (or Prolonged Exposure or Imagery Rescripting) significantly decreased PTSD symptom severity when added to standard substance use disorder treatment, without increasing substance use severity (Lortye et al., 2025).
• EMDR has also shown promising results in treating borderline personality disorder, with an RCT demonstrating that EMDR and CBT both significantly improved trauma and BPD symptoms, as well as promoting post-traumatic growth. Additionally, EMDR showed benefits in response accuracy and speed, with a correct response rate of 97% when comparing two participants (with and without therapy) (Nvo-Fernandez et al., 2025).
• An online EMDR 2.0 Group Protocol was found to be effective in reducing anxiety, stress and traumatic symptoms compared to the mhGAP Stress Management Module in a non-clinical sample of individuals who had experienced a traffic accident (Yasar et al., 2025).
• Finally, an RCT on adolescents with depression who had experienced stressful life events found that incorporating EMDR as an add-on therapy to medication can effectively reduce the impact of stressful life events, depressive symptoms and ruminative thinking compared with SSRI medication alone (Zheng et al., 2025).

Disclaimer: this update reports study findings only; the research included in the database has not been assessed for quality, and we recommend that evidence users do so before applying recommendations into practice. You can find out more about critical appraisal of research here: EMDR UK Association research webinars: Developing critical analytic skills – EMDR Therapy Quarterly

This update focuses on systematic reviews and RCTs as the most frequently occurring publication types the quarter, but the publications database includes many other study designs, as outlined in Table 1.

New publications by type

Research/publication type tag	Number of new publications added
Systematic reviews/meta-analyses	8
Randomised controlled trials	5
Dissertations & theses	4
Quasi-experimental studies	4
Feasibility/pilot studies	3
Mixed methods studies	2
Randomised controlled trials – protocols (ongoing research)	2
Research protocols (ongoing studies)	2
Retrospective studies	2
Single-case experimental design	2
Surveys	2
Case reports	1
Cohort studies	1
Cross-sectional studies	1
Non-English language	1 (French)

Table 1. New publications by research/publication type

The next update of the publications database will be in October, but in the meantime, if you have any queries or comments, you are welcome to get in touch at: a.sutton@emdrassociation.org.uk.

If you are an EMDR UK member, and wish to request access to the database, please email the team at University of Sheffield: emdrdatabase@sheffield.ac.uk