Author: Francine Shapiro

Shapiro devised EMDR in 1987 after noticing that her own distressing thoughts eased while her eyes moved across a park, and built a therapy around recalling trauma while tracking a moving finger. It is now recommended for post-traumatic stress by the World Health Organization and by clinical guidelines in several countries, and it does help people. What the evidence does not support is her explanation of why: dismantling studies repeatedly find the eye movements add nothing, and the working ingredient appears to be the exposure itself. Her doctorate came from an institution that was not accredited. She trained tens of thousands of clinicians through her own institute. She died in 2019.