Dr. Serdar Guner reports that those behaviorally troubled Dutch patients with Turkish origin have not necessarily been benefitted by those 10-15 sessions of EMDR during their psychiatric evaluations necessitated by different conditions. The clinicians have reportedly been applying traditional EMDR methods first to be objectifying relaxation through imagination and later on processing the completion of catharsis during as well as after the said eye movements. The patients, however, have been reporting no benefits and even at times, worsened clinical conditions after the given session. Dr. Guner has finally extracted the facts centered on this failure relevant to the given patient population. Those Turkish-Dutch clients have not been acknowledged about the rationale relevant to which-treats-what phenomenon through the catharsis. Lacking of explanation centralized around acknowledgement along with a possible language barrier has been hindering the therapeutic process. This finding has eventually led him to develop a sister method specifically designed for this patient population. He has slowly but steadily, started informing his patients about shock, repression of the feelings during it, and the effect of those repressed emotions on the people in short as well as long term trajectories. He, later on, used metaphors in picturing the process through which the said repressed emotions would be surfaced by means of EMDR. One of the interesting demographics has been the cultural difference of this given patient population. Those Dutch clients with Turkish origins have not been motivated in processing anything if they had not understood what they were doing. While this, in fact, is also true with the people from the other cultures, Dutch-Turks appeared to be a bit more autonomous in directing themselves in comparison with the Western Europeans who have likely been more conformists with their clinicians even when they have not necessarily been understanding what and why they were doing in any recommended method.
Dr. Guner reviews his methodology designed for this population during his presentation. Most of the work has been an "acknowledgement" in his following up with his patients. This variant method has been helping PTSD patients' feeling relaxation even after first two sessions. Dr. Guner reports that about 150 of his patients have been very happy about the outcome of this EMDR variant.