Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy as a Feasible and Potential Effective Treatment for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and a History of Adverse Events.

Ella et al. (2019) added up to eight EMDR sessions to the usual care of autistic adults who carried trauma histories.

They tracked PTSD symptoms, general distress, and autism-feature scores before, after, and again six to eight weeks later.

No control group was used; each participant served as their own baseline.

PTSD and distress dropped a lot after the short EMDR run.

Autism-feature scores inched down a little and all gains held at follow-up.

The team concluded the therapy is feasible and looks effective for this group.

Cai et al. (2018) warned that most autism emotion studies only use questionnaires and urged real-world tests. Ella answered by running an actual eight-session trial, filling the gap the review flagged.

Soto et al. (2024) later showed that a brief inpatient emotion-assessment cut antipsychotic load for autistic adults. Both papers layer emotion-focused help onto usual care and get positive results, strengthening the idea that targeting emotional pain lowers overall medication need.

Leung et al. (2014) found emotion dysregulation tightly linked to repetitive behaviors in autistic youth. Ella’s small drop in autism-feature scores after EMDR hints that easing trauma may soften these core signs, but more work is needed to prove the link.

If you serve autistic adults with trauma histories, you now have an evidence-based add-on that takes only eight sessions and can slash PTSD symptoms without raising meds. Start by asking intake clients about adverse events; if trauma screens are positive, refer to an EMDR-trained therapist and keep measuring stress and repetitive behavior as you go.