Article: EMDR Works! Is That Enough? - Joe
Gastright
Article: Going Gaga - Gareth Branwyn
Research Update: Were Lorenzo's Parents
Right?
Research Update: No Evidence of Satanic
Conspiracy
Guide to Psychic Testing Available
In 1987 a 39-year-old, Brooklyn-born, new age seeker was walking in a park in San Gateo, California. Without warning she was overwhelmed with disturbing thoughts. They vanished as quickly as they had arrived, and on analysis she decided that the improvement occurred after she had flicked her eyes from side to side. She tried the technique on other traumatic memories and noticed that after the eye movement the memories just "didn't have the same charge." When she tried the technique with friends, she noticed that many people were unable to flick their eyes properly, so she started "conducting" them by moving her fingers back and forth in front of their eyes at the correct speed. The fingers move about as fast as a tennis match on fast forward.
Now seven years later Francine Shapiro is the guru of the hottest new therapeutic movement around, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprogramming (EMDR). The one-time English teacher and Ph.D. candidate in literature at New York University became a seeker after she discovered that she had cancer. She dropped her New York connections and moved westward sampling alternative health treatments. A search for intuitive treatments took her to California and to that park in San Gateo.
She aggressively pursued the development of her therapy and used it as the basis of her dissertation in clinical psychology at a now defunct institution in San Diego. Shapiro (1989) reported that all 23 clients in her study were "successfully desensitized ... and dramatically altered ... through the three-month follow-up check."
Armed with these results, Shapiro went on the road selling her technique and the training required to use it to the therapeutic community. To their dismay, researchers who expressed interest in her topic were immediately listed as supporters. Negative results or problems were never mentioned. Researchers who tried to work with Shapiro on controlled studies found quickly that she offered lip-service to serious research, but not cooperation.
Early replications of her work were no better controlled than her own work, but they were influential in selling "eye motion" to an increasing circle of therapists, particularly in Veterans Administration hospitals with patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many of these early replications showed that the method was no panacea. About half of the subjects were unimproved or got worse, about what would have been expected had no treatment been administered. For example, Oswalt et al. (1993) reported that three of eight subjects reported improvement after EMDR, but that these were the subjects with less severe trauma. Lipke (1992) reported that two of five subjects reported improvement, two felt worse, and the other remained unchanged. Other researchers with better designs reported small but significant effects. However, the effects were the same for patients who wiggled their eyes and for patients who tapped their fingers!
In Shapiro's 1989 description of her technique, all clients signed a statement of informed consent and a waiver that they would never use the technique on someone else without attending one of her $560 training workshops. Then the subjects were asked to visualize the traumatic memory and recall and rank the strength of the emotions associated with it on a ten-point scale. The therapist then moved his finger horizontally back and forth in front of the subject's eyes until the patient reported a change in perception or the subject's eyes became fatigued.
The number of eye movements was initially described as about 12. In later reports 20 or 24 is more commonly attributed to a single SCAD, the term invented to describe one round of finger strokes. According to Shapiro, after the administration of one or more SCADS, the memory should fade and the patient should report a lower number on the emotional response scale. New SCADs were administered until the patient said the negative affect was gone. In many cases several hours were devoted to a single memory. Then the patient was asked to come up with a self-generated positive thought (maybe something like, "Everyday in every way I am getting better"?) The patient then repeated the statement until the patient reported that it was "believable." Shapiro reported that all of this can be accomplished in one session.
Unfortunately other negative thoughts have a tendency to appear as old ones are "desensitized" and these must be treated with additional SCADS, so the claim of a one-session therapy has not been supported. It is also clear that many therapists tend to intermix a little "talking therapy" of their own with EMDR, so it is hard to separate the effect of the eye movement from the effect of the talking therapy.
Asking the patient to follow the therapist's fingers with the eyes is an attention-directing activity. In similar situations mesmerists were inclined to use passes with a magnet. James Braid, the English physician who provided systematic suggestion with the respectable name "hypnosis," asked his patients to concentrate on a bright object held slightly above eye-level. Watching a pendulum held before the eyes was another popular hypnotic induction technique. Ms. Shapiro presented EMDR as an inexpensive, one treatment alternative to years of therapy and counseling. Across time the treatment has "drifted" from one session to a few sessions to its use as a feature in "a continuing counseling relationship."
In a parallel way the number of training sessions recommended has expanded to two, each $560. With over 7,000 trainees at work, Ms. Shapiro has collected many millions in a relatively short period. Until recently she was the only approved trainer of EMDR. Recently she has anointed ten other individuals to share the wealth.
Hara Marano (1994) reported that thousands of therapists live in fear that health care reform may force them into showing that objective improvement occurs in their clientele. To these therapists, EMDR appears to be just the kind of miracle needed.
Originally targeted at serious psychic trauma such as post traumatic stress syndrome, EMDR is now routinely used to treat phobias, panic, attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, depression, addictions, eating disorders, and just plain feeling bad. In other works, EMDR has "drifted" from a specific procedure for a specific problem to a combination of blinking, finger tapping, and whatever the clinician wants to throw in aimed at a wide variety of mental illnesses. All of this has occurred without any strong evidence of its effectiveness beyond the positive anecdotes of the clinicians who use it.
Perhaps it succeeds because there is no such evidence. There is no proof that existing methods used by therapists were selected based on conclusive research evidence. Also the lack of theory shown by EMDR is similar to many occult remedies. Astrology, palmistry, and homeopathy are recommended because users believe they work, not because objective evidence or theory have been produced.
Shapiro has presented a variety of theoretical explanations for EMDR's alleged effect, but none of them is supported by research. Shapiro once proposed that eye movements mimic the rapid eye movement in REM sleep, REM sleep occurs during dreaming, and dreaming is where problems are processed, ergo wiggling your eyes processes problems. Sleep researchers were not supportive or amused. More recently she has proposed "dual attention," which would explain why other attention diverters work equally well. Other researchers have suggested that the enthusiasm of the therapist armed with a new toy explains the success. This would explain the initial success of so many therapists, as well as their rapid loss of efficacy. Others have speculated that the procedure is a classic example of a situation which delivers a strong suggestion that the patient will improve and a strong "demand factor." The patient is exposed to strong positive expectations under a treatment which will go on and on until improvement occurs or is reported.
Eventually large scale controlled experiments using objective measures will be carried out. By then it is likely that some new miracle treatment will have replaced EMDR. Based on what we know now, it is equally likely that EMDR will remain modestly effective over a range of moderately serious problems as long as both the patient and the clinician believe it works. Then it will join a long line of suggestive therapies whose limited effectiveness is attributed to the placebo effect. - Joe Gastright, Investigations Officer.
A.R.T. President Roy Auerbach found the article below in bOING bOING, a lively magazine devoted to "cyberbunk, fringe tech, altered consciousness, high weirdness, and subculture curiosities" - and, in this case, skepticism. - Ed.
Anti-magician Penn Jillette loves to wag his red-nailed pinkie finger at "newage" (pronouncing it so that it rhymes with "sewage"). As far as I'm concerned, the best thing about the so called "new edge" ("newedge") is that it can be reduced to similar effluent.
This is not a conclusion I've come to from on high. I'm not rejecting the newage, and its newedgey offspring, out of hand. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was a crystal-packin' member of the newage during the 1970s. I joined out of desperation.
I have a severe form of arthritis, and when western science failed to offer a cure, I turned to any and all forms of magic to find healing. I wanted so desperately to find relief that I embraced each healing system in turn, reading all the books, going to the workshops, and following the practices. The priests and healers of each "discipline" would always tell me the same thing. "We've had great success with arthritis. If you follow our program, in a few months, you'll experience dramatic results."
And each time the same thing would happen. I'd follow the program almost to the letter. If for instance, it was wheat grass therapy, the daily drinking and spraying up your butt of obscene quantities of liquefied wheat grass, I'd do it every day for weeks missing maybe one or two days. When I'd report no change in my condition to the therapist, she'd ask: "You followed the program to the letter?" I'd say "Yes, 'cept for one or two days."
That was the loophole she needed. One day, one meal, one psychically-incorrect thought, and months of food torture were for naught. It was NEVER the therapy that was called into question, it was always me. On the rare occasion that I claimed a perfect score in following the regimen, my failure would be chalked up to karma. "You're just not ready to accept your healing, Gareth," I'd be told. Funny how they were perfectly willing to accept my money!
From my experiences, after years in the bowels of the newage, I offer a few observations:
It's never the system that's at fault. It's a closed loop. Any feedback that might alter the belief system is rejected. Only the success stories get attention (so, in the above instance, they can tell the next mark: "we've had great success with arthritis.") Once, I was reporting to a skeptical friend a whole series of psychic occurrences I'd had. He said: "Yeah, but how many times do these premonitions and psychic hunches not pan out?" That insight doomed the closed system I was attempting to construct. From then on, as I paid attention to each premonition, I realized that tons of them didn't come true. I wasn't even hitting 50%. Before, I just conveniently forgot the ones that didn't happen.
Newagers hate western science and logical thinking. Thinking is bad - the root of all evil. One scientist friend of mine went into therapy with his newage girlfriend. He was completely chastised by the therapist and his girlfriend for "too much head, not enough heart." The girlfriend was instructed by the therapist to remind him whenever he was "in his head" by gently tapping his noggin'. Whenever he and I would get together, we'd start talking, and she'd immediately come over and tap him on the head. What bullshit! It's not thinking that's the problem, it's having a lazy, fat head. Your brain, like any other part of your body, needs exercise or it gets flabby. Newagers who hate "thinking" are just saying they hate the limited palette of thoughts they have to work with, and most of those have to do with painful memories, dark obsessions, and politically incorrect, no-no thoughts.
Newagers love to entertain the notion that they're opened-minded and zestfully ready for anything. That's the case as long as their closed system isn't jeopardized. Here's a perfect example: A friend of mine took a workshop on "Contacting Your Spirit Guide" (the unseen, benevolent forces that guide your life). The culmination of the workshop was making contact with your spirit helper. At the time, my friend embraced all this newage jazz, but she also had an open mind and a wacky sense of humor.
At the climax of the "contacting ritual," the participants, supposedly in trance, were supposed to see standing before them their spirit guide. She saw an image all right - it was Barney Rubble of the Flintstones. She started laughing and the workshop leader got very annoyed. After the ritual, the participants shared their supermarket tabloid visions of angels, fairies, and benevolent aliens. When my friend announced that Barney Rubble had revealed himself, the leader was incensed. She began making up reasons why ol' Barn could not be a "legitimate" spirit contact. "He's ... ah ... not real... he's ... ah ... a fictional character." Excuse me, lady? Let me get this straight? Fairies, unicorns, elves, and angels are real, but a lovable, happy-go-lucky cartoon caveman is less real? Look over this list, folks - who would you rather have as your astral side-kick?
Let's paint a picture of the dawning newage. Everyone would get along, there'd be no conflict. We'd all be vegetarians, spiritually attuned and sensitive to everything around us. We'd "allow" others to be and do as they needed to fulfill their karma (as long as their choices were politically and spiritually "correct"). We'd recycle everything, bicycle to work at the Coop, and smile all day long. Critical thinking, science, technology would be de-emphasized and feeling, "following your heart," and the music of Yanni and John Tesh would be emphasized. Peace, love, tofu.
Switching from the newage to the currently-hipper newedge, not much changes. We get Terence McKenna instead of Ram Dass and the Orb instead of Kitaro, and we don't have to feel guilty about using computers. All-night Dead shows are replaced by all-night raves. Other than that, it's pretty much the same agenda. Peace, love and smart drugs. Totalizing ideologies are a bore.
Your average newager would probably giggle with delight at the idea of being held to logical consistency. He or she would give me that "Oh, you unenlightened little man" look. But it's fun to taunt newagers about obvious holes in their reasoning. Someone once sent us a tape of a psychic reading from some fat guy in a flannel shirt called Lazarus. It was so goofy that our group house used to show it for laughs at parties. We called him Lavoris (like the mouthwash).
I thought it was all a big joke 'til one day I was surrounded by newagers and I started telling them about the tape. They began defending this guy saying that many of his predictions come true and that "he's helped a lot of people." I asked, "OK, so he claims he's channeling a medieval monk from Britain, right? Then why is he using concepts like "energy," "karma" and "chakras?" Their response was expected: "That's the channeler talking. He's translating Lazarus' ideas to relate to his newage audience." "OK, then why does he have this shitty Scottish accent? If it's the channeler talking, then why isn't he using plain English? Or, if it's the monk talking, why isn't he using a perfect 12th century Scottish accent?" At this point, everyone grew uncomfortable. When I continued to raise doubts and insisted on calling him Lavoris, they got really mad. One guy ran outside to do Kundalini Yoga to repair himself from my damaging negative energy. I'm not kidding!
And, if you think all this newage stuff is old news, a relic of the '70s and '80s, go to a rave or a Zippie gathering. It's the same stuff dressed up in synths and CPUs. Technology plays a bigger role, but that's about it. The underlying concepts are almost identical. Just look at this quote from Ambient Temple of Imagination, a techno record we received for review today: "Ambient Temple of Imagination will transform what we know today as 'religions' into true laboratories of consciousness wherein the Will will be able to expand and express its super-human cosmic potentials and emanate LIFE-LIGHT-LOVE-LIBERTY beyond anything ever conceived in any previous civilization."
WOW - all that from a crummy rave CD? I guess if I listen to it and it doesn't expand my super-human cosmic potential it's because I'm still not ready to accept my healing. Having hung out with the healed, the enlightened, and the cyber-shamatic, this is definitely the case. - Gareth Branwyn.
(Reprinted with permission of both bOING bOING and Mr. Branwyn)
Remember Lorenzo's Oil? This combination of erucic and oleic acids
found in vegetable cooking oils has been promoted as both cure and
prevention for adrenoleukodystrophy, a devastating childhood disease.
This disorder, which almost never attacks girls, afflicts about half
of the boys who have the gene which causes the disease. Characterized
by high levels of long-chain proteins in the blood, it kills by
destroying the nervous system, leading to paralysis and death.
Given the horrifying and tragic effects of the disease it is no surprise to find nonstandard treatments getting good media play. In 1993, a movie, Lorenzo's Oil, was made to tell the story of how the oil allegedly helped Lorenzo Odone, son of Augusto and Michaela Odone, who was paralyzed by the disease. Lorenzo's parents contended that the oil helped reduce the accumulation of long-chain proteins, allowed Lorenzo to wiggle his toes and raise his eyebrows, and if used early enough could prevent the disease.
Now Dr. Hugo Moser, pediatric neurologist at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, reports that he and his fellow researchers, members of the Society for the Study of Inborn Errors of Metabolism, have begun research on the effects of Lorenzo's oil on 100 boys who had the adrenoleukodystrophy gene.
Moser tested the Odones' hypothesis that early use of Lorenzo's oil prevents the onset of the disease by giving the oil to 53 boys who have the gene but were symptom free at the time the study began.
He found that no preventative effect for the oil appeared in the small group of patients he studied. However, among those patients, it did lengthen the time between the onset of symptoms and total paralysis by three to four months, not a clinically significant improvement in patients' quality of life according to Moser. On average, 1.9 years elapse between the onset of the disease and the point at which the child can no longer move or respond. - Ed.
Large, well-organized groups of Satan worshippers have abused and murdered animals and babies in elaborate satanic rituals on the pages of the tabloid press and in stories told to psychotherapists by troubled patients for years. Small scale studies done by the British Government, the Office of the Attorney General of Utah, the Michigan State Police, and the Virginia Crime Commission have turned up no evidence of wide-spread organized satanic groups, but that has not prevented many from continuing to believe in the existence of such groups.
Now a large scale study of the prevalence of such incidents has made the same finding - no evidence of large, organized groups of murderous, baby-eating Satanists. The study is the first authoritative, national study of reports of organized satanic activity, according to its sponsor, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.
The study, directed by psychologist Gail Goodman at the University of California at Davis, surveyed 4,655 district attorneys, police departments, and social service agencies and 6,910 psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical social workers. These respondents reported having investigated 12,264 accusations of group ritual satanic sexual abuse.
Of the 12, 264 incidents reported not a single one was found to be substantiated. No incident provided verifiable evidence of "a well-organized intergenerational satanic cult, who sexually molested and tortured children in their homes or schools for years and committed a series of murders," the most common form this conspiracy notion takes, according to Goodman.
The researchers were able to verify incidents involving "lone perpetrators or couples who say they are involved with Satan or use the claim to intimidate victims." In one of the most thoroughly substantiated incidents, grandparents accused of sexually abusing five grandchildren were found to have "black robes, candles, and Christ on an inverted crucifix" and the grandchildren's throats were infected with a sexually transmitted disease, chlamydia.
True believers will no doubt remain unconvinced by the study's findings, but psychotherapists are reported to be exercising more caution when faced by patients reporting the heinous doings of an alleged satanic conspiracy. - Ed.
The University of Hertfordshire Press has announced the publication in January of Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants, by Richard Wiseman and Robert L. Morris.
The book is designed as an aid to health professionals, law enforcement agents, cult investigators, journalists, scientists and others who need a reliable method for testing the psychic claims of palm readers, astrologers, faith healers, psychic surgeons, psychic detectives and so on. According to the publisher, the book aims to provide "pragmatic and flexible guidelines to help researchers identify and resolve the problems that most frequently occur during the assessment of individuals claiming strong psychic ability." It is the first such guide to be published.
Richard Wiseman, a member of the psychology faculty at the University of Hertfordshire, specializes in the psychology of deception and parapsychology. He has also worked as a professional magician. Robert L. Morris is Koestler Professor of Parapsychology at the University of Edinburgh. His major interests are parapsychology and the psychology of anomalous experiences and deception.
Information on the 70-page book is available from the University of Hertfordshire Press, Library & Media Services, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, UK. Telephone: +44 1707-284665. Internet address: W.A.Forster@herts.ac.uk.
This information comes to A.R.T. courtesy of Barry Karr, Executive
Director of the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of
the Paranormal (CSICOP). - Ed.
Copyright 1992-2005, The Association for Rational Thought