Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing in addiction continuing care: a phenomenological study of women in recovery.

Traditional models of addiction treatment and relapse prevention fail to consider the role that unresolved trauma plays in an addicted woman’s recovery experience. Implementing Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) into the treatment process offers a potential solution to this problem. Ten women (alumnae of an extended-care treatment facility) participated in a semistandardized interview to share their experiences with active addiction, treatment, EMDR therapy, and recovery. With the use of A. P. Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological psychological method for analysis, four major thematic areas emerged from the interview data: the existence of safety as an essential crucible of the EMDR experience, the importance of accessing the emotional core as vital to the recovery experience, the role of perspective shift in lifestyle change, and the use of a combination of factors for successful treatment. All 10 women, to some degree, credited EMDR treatment as a crucial component of their addiction continuing-care processes, especially in helping with emotional core access and perspective shift. Implications emerge from the data on how to best implement EMDR into a comprehensive addiction treatment program.