Background: Traumatic experiences can lead to disorders in cognitive processing and reduce self-awareness, thereby weakening insight .. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing with EMDR through cognitive reprocessing and reducing the emotional burden of traumatic memories, has the capacity to enhance insight . Despite extensive evidence about the effectiveness of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing in clinical signs of traumatized individuals, the direct relationship between this and improvement in insight has been less studied.
Objective: This study was conducted with the aim of examining the effect of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR on psychological insight and self-awareness of traumatized individuals .
Methods: The present study took the form of a systematic narrative review . A search was conducted for articles in PubMed، PsycINFO، ScienceDirect، Scholar Googleand Scopususing keywords »EMDR«، «insight»، «self-awareness» and «trauma» was performed and the results were restricted to English-language articles published between 2012 and October 2023. Based on PRISMA framework, 42 articles were identified and after screening, 2 studies (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods were selected . The quality of the studies was assessed using RoB2 and CASP tools, and the data were analyzed using a narrative synthesis approach .
Results: The findings showed that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment had a positive and significant effect on psychological insight and self-awareness of traumatized individuals . The findings were organized into four main themes including improvement in emotional self-awareness, reconstruction of personal narratives, increased cognitive coherence, and organization of demographic differences . Cultural factors influenced responses to treatment , but age and gender differences were not significant.
Conclusion: This study showed that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment has a positive and significant effect on psychological insight and self-awareness of traumatized individuals . These findings can be used in designing treatment programs based on desensitization and for people with trauma disorders can be used. Additionally, this finding can help psychotherapists by enabling them to focus on improving self-awareness
emotional and reconstruction of personal narratives, increasing the effectiveness of interventions on psychological insight of traumatized individuals and promoting.