Do EMDR Results Last? Long-Term Follow-Up Studies

The best evidence says yes, often for months or years, though few studies track people that long. A 1997 trial held its gains at 15 months, a 2007 trial found EMDR’s benefits still outpacing a discontinued antidepressant’s at 6 months, and a 2015 depression trial reported fewer relapses past the one-year mark. Genuinely long, well-designed follow-ups remain rare.

Search “how long do EMDR results last” and you’ll mostly find confident one-line answers with no study behind them. The real picture is more specific and more useful: a handful of trials have actually followed people past the end of treatment, for months or, in one case, well over a year. This page names each one, what it followed, and for how long. If you’re newer to whether EMDR works at all, Does EMDR Work? What the Evidence Actually Says is the place to start; this page assumes you’re past that question and asking a narrower one.

Long-term EMDR follow-up, at a glance

• The most-cited durability finding is a 1997 trial: 84% of participants no longer met PTSD criteria after three sessions, a rate that held from the end of treatment through 15 months later (Wilson, Becker & Tinker, 1997).
• A 2007 trial comparing EMDR against the antidepressant fluoxetine found EMDR’s gains kept consolidating after treatment ended, while fluoxetine’s mostly faded once the pill was stopped, measured at a 6-month follow-up (van der Kolk et al., 2007).
• Outside PTSD, a small 2015 inpatient depression trial found fewer relapses in the EMDR group past the one-year mark (Hase et al., 2015).
• EMDR’s very first controlled trial already asked this question: Francine Shapiro’s 1989 study checked in at 1 and 3 months and found the improvement had held (Shapiro, 1989).
• A 2013 Cochrane review found EMDR and trauma-focused CBT both stayed ahead of non-trauma-focused therapy at 1-to-4-month follow-up, though it rated the underlying evidence very low quality (Cochrane, 2013).
• Genuinely long, multi-year randomized follow-up data is rare. Most of what exists tops out around 15 months, and no study on this page tested a self-guided app.

What counts as “long-term” in EMDR research?

Less than you might guess. Many EMDR trials measure results at the end of treatment and stop there. When a study does add a follow-up, it usually means somewhere between one and six months later, not years.

Only a handful push further. The longest example on this page, Wilson, Becker, and Tinker’s 1997 trial, checked in at 15 months, and that still counts as one of the field’s more durable pieces of follow-up data nearly three decades later. Worth keeping in mind next time a page claims “EMDR’s results last”: a study that held at 3 months answered a real question, just a much narrower one than “will this still matter in five years.”

What do the follow-up studies actually show?

Here’s every study on this page that reported a specific timepoint after treatment ended, side by side.

Study	Year	Follow-up length	What it found
Shapiro	1989	1 and 3 months	The original EMD trial; anxiety reduction and belief change held at 3 months in 22 adults
Wilson, Becker & Tinker	1997	15 months	84% no longer met PTSD criteria, a rate that held from post-treatment through 15 months
Cochrane review	2013	1-4 months	EMDR and trauma-focused CBT both stayed ahead of non-trauma-focused therapy; evidence rated very low quality
van der Kolk et al.	2007	6 months	EMDR’s gains held (62.2% symptom drop from baseline); the fluoxetine group’s mostly didn’t once the medication stopped
Hase et al.	2015	12+ months	68% of hospitalized depression patients reached full remission; the EMDR group reported fewer relapses past the 1-year mark

Two patterns stand out. First, every study that measured a follow-up found the improvement held, or in EMDR’s case against fluoxetine, kept improving rather than fading. Second, “held” almost always means “at the specific timepoint this study happened to check,” not “forever.” Nothing here reports a five- or ten-year check-in.

Francine Shapiro’s 1989 study, EMDR’s very first controlled trial, gave 22 adults with trauma-related distress from combat, assault, or abuse a single treatment session, then checked back at 1 and 3 months. The anxiety reduction and belief change she measured had held at 3 months, before EMDR had a name or a following. A 1994 dismantling study by Renfrey and Spates tested three versions of the procedure, with and without real eye movements, on 23 people with PTSD; all three groups improved and held those gains at follow-up, though it wasn’t designed to say for how much longer that would stay true. The fuller history of that origin research, including why critics still question the original sample, lives at Shapiro’s 1989 study.

Do EMDR’s gains outlast medication once treatment ends?

One trial answers this directly, and it’s the most-cited durability comparison EMDR has. In a 2007 randomized trial led by psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, 88 adults with PTSD received 8 weeks of either EMDR, the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac), or a placebo pill. Right after those 8 weeks, EMDR and fluoxetine looked roughly similar.

Six months later, with fluoxetine no longer being taken, the picture had changed. PTSD symptom scores had dropped 62.2% from baseline in the EMDR group, versus 48.3% in the fluoxetine group. Among people whose trauma began in adulthood, 75.0% who received EMDR were symptom-free at 6 months, versus 0% who received fluoxetine. For childhood-onset trauma, EMDR’s own number was lower, 33.3%, a reminder that durability isn’t the same for every kind of trauma history.

That’s a real, specific finding: a therapy that kept consolidating after it ended, next to a medication whose benefit mostly needed the pill to continue. It’s also one trial, at one site, with roughly 29 to 30 people per arm. The fuller breakdown, including why childhood-onset trauma responded differently, lives at Van der Kolk’s EMDR vs Prozac study, explained.

Does durability hold up outside PTSD, like for depression?

Some, though from a much smaller trial. A 2015 matched-pairs study in Brain and Behavior, led by Hase and colleagues, gave 16 psychiatric inpatients with a depressive episode just one or two EMDR sessions added to their usual hospital care, matched against 16 similar inpatients who received usual care alone.

Sixty-eight percent of the EMDR group reached full remission. Past the one-year mark, the EMDR group also reported fewer relapses than the usual-care group did. That’s a genuinely useful long-term data point, and it comes from outside PTSD entirely, but it’s a small trial: 16 people per arm, at one hospital, not yet replicated at scale. The fuller picture of this research lives at EMDR and Depression: What the Meta-Analyses Show.

How does EMDR’s durability compare with other therapies over time?

About the same as trauma-focused CBT, for as far out as the evidence currently checks. A 2013 Cochrane review of chronic PTSD found EMDR and trauma-focused CBT performed similarly right after treatment, and both stayed ahead of non-trauma-focused therapies at a 1-to-4-month follow-up.

The honest caveat, one that shows up across this whole page, sits inside that same review: its authors rated the underlying evidence very low quality, largely because of small sample sizes. Studies that check on durability tend to find real, sustained effects; those same studies are often the ones with the thinnest methodological footing. A real effect and an airtight one aren’t the same claim, and this literature asks you to hold both at once. For the wider comparison, see EMDR and PTSD: What the Research Shows.

Why isn’t there more long-term EMDR research?

A few reasons, and none are unique to EMDR. Long follow-ups cost more to run and keep funded, and the people being followed drop out as time passes. A 2020 meta-analysis found an overall 16% dropout rate across PTSD psychotherapies during treatment itself, before any follow-up period even begins; keeping people enrolled for a check-in a year or five years later is a harder problem still.

Study quality is a separate, compounding issue. A 2020 review of 76 trials found only 4 of 27 PTSD-specific trials had a low risk of bias overall, a concern about how a trial was run generally, not only about its follow-up length. A short, well-designed trial and a long, weaker one aren’t a fair trade, which is part of why researchers haven’t simply swapped one problem for the other.

Put together: the field has real answers at several timepoints, up to about 15 months for PTSD and past a year for one small depression trial, and a genuine gap in true multi-year, high-quality data. For the fuller picture of what “success” and “evidence-based” mean across this research, see What Is the Success Rate of EMDR? The Real Numbers.

Does this apply to self-guided bilateral stimulation?

No, and that’s worth saying plainly before anything else. Every study above tested therapist-delivered EMDR with people who had a diagnosed condition, tracked by a research team over months or years. None of it measured a self-guided app, and no durability research like this exists yet for practicing bilateral stimulation on your own.

What carries over is the underlying technique, not the clinical timelines above. If you want to try it for everyday stress or a memory that keeps resurfacing, the same caution that mattered inside these trials matters more when nobody else is watching.

Stabilize before anything else. Build a calm-place or grounding practice, and use it until it reliably settles you, before bringing any uncomfortable material to mind.

Go slow. Work with one small, recent, low-intensity target, not your heaviest memory, and keep sessions short. Lasting change tends to come from steady, well-paced practice, not from rushing the material that matters most.

Know your stop-conditions. If distress rises above a 7 out of 10 and won’t settle, stop and use grounding instead of pushing through. Consider working with a professional if that keeps happening, and never start, stop, or change any medication without your prescriber. If thoughts of harming yourself come up, please visit our crisis resources page or call or text 988 (US) first.

EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, stays deliberately in that lane: guided visual and audio bilateral stimulation for practicing the technique on your own time, for everyday stress rather than the diagnosed conditions the studies above followed. A 7-day free trial is available if you want to try it.

The bottom line

The honest answer to “how long do EMDR results last” is: longer than a single session, in the studies that actually checked, but the checking itself stops earlier than you’d expect. Wilson and colleagues held their 84% remission rate to 15 months. Van der Kolk’s trial found EMDR still ahead of a discontinued antidepressant at 6 months. A small depression trial saw fewer relapses a year out.

None of that adds up to “EMDR’s results last forever” or “EMDR’s results fade fast.” It adds up to a research base with several real answers, at several different timepoints, that hasn’t yet asked the multi-year question as often as it should.

Frequently asked questions

How long do EMDR’s effects typically last?

Longer than most people expect, based on the studies that actually measured it. A 1997 trial held its 84% remission rate through 15 months. A 2007 trial found EMDR’s gains still outpacing a discontinued antidepressant’s at 6 months. Genuinely multi-year follow-up data, though, is rare across the whole field.

Has any study followed EMDR patients for more than a year?

Yes, though not many. Wilson, Becker, and Tinker’s 1997 trial followed 66 people to 15 months. A 2015 inpatient depression trial reported fewer relapses past the one-year mark. Genuinely multi-year, large-scale randomized follow-up is still rare in the published EMDR literature.

Do EMDR’s gains outlast antidepressant medication?

In one 2007 trial, yes, at least at 6 months. 75% of people with adult-onset trauma stayed symptom-free after EMDR, versus 0% after fluoxetine once the pill was stopped. That’s one study, though, not a general rule, and never a reason to stop medication on your own.

Why is there so little long-term research on EMDR?

Long trials cost more, and people drop out over time; one review found 16% dropout during treatment alone. Study quality is also a live concern generally: a 2020 review found only 4 of 27 PTSD trials had a low risk of bias, before follow-up length even enters the picture.

Does self-guided bilateral stimulation have its own long-term evidence?

No. Every study above tested therapist-delivered EMDR with people who had a diagnosed condition. Self-guided bilateral stimulation, like EmEase, is a wellness practice for everyday stress, borrowing the same technique, not a tested treatment with its own durability research.

What if calm feelings fade or distress comes back later?

That’s useful information, not failure. Go back to grounding or a calm-place practice, and reconsider your pace. If distress climbs past a 7 out of 10 and won’t settle, or this keeps happening, that’s a sign to work with a trained professional instead.