EMDR as treatment of post-traumatic reactions: A field study on child victims of an earthquake

This field study explores the effectiveness of EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) for the post-traumatic reactions of child victims in the post-emergency context of an earthquake that occurred in 2002 in Molise, a region of Central Italy. EMDR was chosen as the treatment for the children of the San Giuliano Primary School in Molise. Twenty-two of the children who experienced the traumatic event, being suddenly buried under the debris of their collapsed school and in contact with the bodies of their dead classmates for hours, received three cycles of EMDR treatment over one year, with a total average of 6.5 sessions of EMDR each. The results show that EMDR contributed to the reduction or remission of PTSD symptoms and facilitated the processing of the traumatic experience.