Ms. Armstrong et K. Vaughan, AN ORIENTING RESPONSE MODEL OF EYE-MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 27(1), 1996, pp. 21-32
Dyck's (Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 1993)
conditioning model of EMD provides a useful description of failure of
habituation in post-traumatic stress disorder, but may not account fo
r some common EMD phenomena. An alternative model proposes that the th
erapist's waving hand - in the presence of a trauma-related cortical s
et - triggers an intense orienting response (OR). Intrinsic effects of
the OR facilitate continuing attention to the memory without avoidanc
e, and provide for effective input of new trauma-related information.
The person's neuronal model of the trauma alters to reflect his surviv
al and current safety - as true outcome of the trauma - and associated
conditioned responses extinguish. Proposals for experimental evaluati
on of the model are described. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd