EMDR can be very successfully used alongside/in parallel with a client’s other mainstream therapy, as long as this is done with a clear focus and time-limited frame, and with full transparency and agreement between both therapists.
We’re very grateful to our colleague Suzanne Borstein in the US for her thinking on this, set out in an article in 2009 for the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research (vol 3 #3 pp 198-204), and outlined in the following downloadable PDFs.
Note that these documents also date back a decade or so now, and that Suzanne is interested in updating the material with input from those of us out here who are drawing on her inspiration.
At EMDR Focus we use Suzanne’s adjunctive EMDR approach quite regularly, and find it highly effective at shifting blocks to trauma processing that might have remained stuck in a client’s principal therapy for years and sometimes even decades.
Colleagues are welcome to use Suzanne’s material, as long as she is quoted as the author, and please note that this material remains her intellectual property/copyright.