by Scott O. Lilienfeld

About the author: Scott O. Lilienfeld is an assistant professor of psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Quick fixes” for emotional maladies have struck a responsive chord in the general public, as biopsychologist B.L. Beyerstein has noted. Because these interventions often hold out the hope of alleviating long-standing and previously intractable problems with a minimum of time and effort, they are understandably appealing to both victims of psychological disorders and their would-be healers.

More often than not, however, the initial enthusiasm generated by such treatments has fizzled as soon as their proponents’ claims have been subjected to intensive scrutiny....

In the past few years, a novel and highly controversial treatment known as “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing” (EMDR) has burst onto...