Page 122 - Post-traumatic stress disorder in adults with mild intellectual disability: Screening, assessment, and brief intensive EMDR therapy

Chapter 5
intensity and the use of rotating therapists. Even the participant who
discontinued treatment held a favourable view of both, based on in-depth
interviews with him, his caregiver, and a therapist.
Intensity of the EMDR therapy
Findings support the notion that intensive trauma treatment not only seems
to be effective for adults with MID-BIF and severe behavioural problems
(Versluis et al., 2025a) but is also experienced positively by participants
themselves. Participants reported that two daily EMDR sessions helped
them stay committed and complete their treatment. This aligns with
findings about experiences of individuals in the general population, in which
intensive trauma treatment is associated with increased engagement
(Butler & Ramsey-Wade, 2024; Thoresen et al., 2022). Although one
participant dropped out, two stated that they would have been more likely
to discontinue therapy if it had been less intensive, which matches the
low dropout rates found in research on intensive trauma treatment in the
general population (Bongaerts et al., 2022; Van Woudenberg et al., 2018).
EMDR therapy with six different therapists
Two of the three participants were very positive about working with different
therapists, while one was less positive. These results align with those of
Van Minnen et al. (2018), who found a general preference for treatment by
a rotating team rather than by a single therapist in the general population.
Several elements presented in the current study may have contributed
to the participants’ positive experiences, despite the involvement of six
different therapists. All therapists were highly experienced in both EMDR
therapy and working with individuals with MID-BIF and appeared to share a
professional and supportive attitude, which has been identified as a relevant
adaptation in EMDR for individuals with MID-BIF (Schipper-Eindhoven
et al., 2024). In addition, the brief intensive EMDR therapy followed a
structured format, using the child and adolescent EMDR protocol (De Roos
et al., 2021), which is written in simplified language and explicitly states
that clients cannot make mistakes. The use of this protocol makes the
treatment transferable between therapists, and the format allowed for the
involvement of caregivers, which may have further supported participants,
as recommended for individuals with MID-BIF by Schipper-Eindhoven et
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