EMDR therapy in the treatment of oncology patients

The diagnosis and treatment of a life-threatening disease such as cancer involves exposure to psychological and physical stress and may constitute a traumatic experience for most people. Abnormal adaptation of neurobiological systems to the stress following experienced trauma, furthermore, individual factors such as previous traumas may also play a role in PTSD development. In the context of oncology, there is a specific need to develop better tools for psychological assessment, that address cancer-related stressors. It is hypothesized that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy promotes the elicitation of the innate self-healing capacity, the natural healing process of the immune system and adaptive information reprocessing. The EMDR therapeutic intervention with oncological patients aims to repair the psychic balance, empower resilience factors and to allow the processing of traumatic disease-related experiences.