EMDR Psychotherapy and Individual Prevention from the Psychosocial Risks at Work: A Clinical Case Study

The international recommendations concerning prevention from suffering at work target mainly organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the role of psychological factors in the onset of anxiety disorders related to stress at work. This paper aims to expose a clinical report leading to the elaboration of a hypothesis on the efficiency of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the tertiary prevention from the psychosocial risks at work. We expose four clinical cases expressing anxiety troubles related to their capacity of adaptation at work. For each subject, EMDR psychotherapy has been proposed based on a standardized protocol. The results show that within less than six EMDR sessions the anxiety troubles and their behavioral and cognitive consequences weakened or disappeared even if the clinical profile of the patients doesn’t correspond to the PTSD diagnosis. EMDR could be an interesting approach in the treatment of psychological factors involved in anxiety troubles with a professional etiology. An EMDR treatment could be proposed for tertiairy prevention of psychosocial risks at work. The effect of EMDR on the neuroendocrine mecanisms of stress might explain its efficiency.