Mr Logan Harvey1, Mr Anthony Hurst
1EMDR Therapy Training Australia; Harvey & Associated Psychology; The University of Sydney; EMDR Association of Australia Scientific, Accreditation and Standards Committees, , Australia
Biography:
Logan Harvey is a Clinical Psychologist and PhD Candidate at The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney, where his doctoral research examines the role of trauma in the nature and treatment of substance use disorders. He is nationally and internationally accredited as an EMDR therapy supervisor and trainer, and has contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of EMDR Therapy and the Clinical Guide to Exposure Therapy. Logan has served on two Australian Government Expert Advisory Panels and is immediate past Chair of the EMDR Association of Australia's Accreditation and Standards Committee.
Abstract:
This presentation establishes the foundation for the symposium by setting out what Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is, and what the research shows about its effectiveness. Its purpose is to give clinical and legal audiences an accurate, evidence-based account of the therapy before later presentations examine the claims made about it. We describe what EMDR involves as a structured, phased treatment, and locate it within the wider field of trauma therapy. The talk's specific contribution is to review the evidence for EMDR's efficacy across mental health presentations, and to set out the research base that underpins its inclusion in all major international and Australian guidelines for post-traumatic stress disorder. We give particular attention to the controlled-trial and meta-analytic findings on which those recommendations rest, and to the size of EMDR's treatment effect. We also consider what the research does and does not establish about how the therapy works, distinguishing well-supported claims about clinical outcome from more contested questions of mechanism. The issue under consideration is how to form an accurate picture of EMDR as an established, evidence-based treatment, against which the later discussion of misconception and legal controversy can be measured. We conclude that EMDR is a well-evidenced therapy, and that any evaluation of its place in legal settings must begin from that empirical footing rather than from assumption.