EMDR Treatment of Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia: Case Report.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an integrative psychotherapy that has been extensively evaluated in its approach to trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In brief, the AIP model is based on the idea that the neurobiological system naturally attempts to process current perceptions in a manner that promotes associations to relevant stored information, to facilitate learning, and to relieve emotional distress. The resulting transfer of information from implicit to explicit memory systems (Shapiro 2001) allows disturbing thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations to be resolved by facilitating access to the stored material and linking it with more adaptive information. However, the intense effect and subsequent dissociation that accompany trauma may interfere with this process, causing the information (e.g., images, thoughts, emotions, and sensations) to be dysfunctionally stored within the memory network. Because the event is isolated within the network, preventing associations with adaptive information, the unresolved material is easily triggered during similar encounters, often leading to intrusive thoughts, emotions, and somatic responses. The consequent habitual response patterns can manifest in characterological difficulties, psychopathology, and the avoidance behaviors associated with phobias and panic disorders (Shapiro 2001, 2002). EMDR s ability to access and target an etiological conditioning event is appreciated and it is also possible to address past, present, and future symptoms in the absence of a known etiological event. Thus, EMDR has the ability to address panic and phobia regardless of the method by which the symptoms, or fear, were acquired. Once the appropriate targets are chosen, the EMDR protocol addresses all experiential components (images, thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations) to stimulate the information processing system as explained by the AIP model (Shapiro 2001, 2002). EMDR was introduced in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH), in 1998 just three years after the war (19921995). The first training was organized in 2009, and in 2014 Association of EMDR Therapists in Bosnia and Herzegovina was established (Hasanovi et al. 2018). So the mental health workers who were properly educated started to use EMDR therapies in everyday helping to BH citizens in need (Trlin & Hasanovi 2018, Hasanovi et al. 2021). The aim of the following case to present how EMDR treatment was used to successfully address panic disorder with agoraphobia.