What have meta-analyses revealed about EMDR?
There have been three meta-analyses that evaluated EMDR outcomes. Van Etten and Taylor (1998) examined responses to psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments of PTSD. They reported that EMDR and exposure therapies achieved similar outcomes, and were superior to other psychotherapeutic treatments. In their analysis they noted that the EMDR studies had used fewer sessions (4.3) to achieve the same level of results produced by more exposure sessions (10.4). They concluded that their results suggest that EMDR is effective for PTSD, and that it is more efficient than other treatments (p. 140). However, direct comparisons of efficiency are better made within a single study with the same population, by analysis of session-to-session response.The Davidson and Parker (2001) meta-analysis evaluated outcomes in 34 different EMDR studies. This was a thorough and comprehensive meta-analysis, although some studies were overlooked. They concluded that EMDR was superior to no-treatment and non-
