An introduction to the Veteran Resilience Project, a Minneapolis based non-profit 501c3 that provides veterans (and active military, reserves, and guard) with up to 12 sessions of EMDR trauma therapy, absolutely free, 100% confidential, using a network of independent trauma therapists in over 20 cities across Greater Minnesota. Our pilot project proved that EMDR is very effective at dealing with many of the after effects of war and military service such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Military Sexual Trauma, Moral Injury, Pain, and Addiction. 74% of veteran clients no longer even qualify as having PTSD after treatment 100% of veteran clients reported significantly reduced symptoms

2. PROVIDING EMDR THERAPY
TO VETERANS IN
MINNESOTA
Paul Riedner, MBA
iraq veteran, us army dive company,
executive director of
veteran resilience project
Joseph Graca PhD
retired department of veteran affairs
Licensed clinical psychologist

3. BACKGROUND
The Veteran Resilience Project
(VRP) offers veterans (or active
military) 10 EMDR therapy sessions
with two more sessions available
for family visits. As in many other
regions of the United States EMDR
therapy is not readily provided in
the VA to veterans in Minnesota.
VRP has successfully reached out
and engaged veterans in Minnesota
in EMDR therapy and retained them
to completion. The EMDR therapy
provided by VRP significantly
reduced PTSD on multiple clinical
measures.

4. METRICS
VRP has been successful in four important
ways.
1) VRP has effectively reached out and
connected veterans with PTSD with EMDR
therapists.
2) Veterans in VRP have a very high rate of
completing EMDR therapy 77%
3) The outcomes data collected by VRP shows
the EMDR therapy was highly effective
4) VRP developed a robust data
collection/outcome management system
to monitor
1) EFFECTIVENESS
2) EFFICIENCY
3) SATISFACTION

5. METHOD
In its outreach efforts and
program design, VRP
thoughtfully followed “design
thinking” best practices to
ensure that veterans,
community leaders, and
veteran service providers
would be listened to and
engaged in the process.
1. Create Veteran Advisory Committee
2. Recruit EMDR therapists across MN
3. Provide “Cultural Competency” training, ie. Advanced Military Training
4. Invite veterans, thought leaders, social workers, mental health
professionals, VA employees, city/county/state officials to “Get Out of Our
Silos” to discuss veteran needs, challenges, and opportunities
5. Incorporate learning, insights, and takeaways into VRP’s program

6. OUTREACH
VRP has developed a new media campaign to generate even stronger connections
with the veteran community and the public at large. Using a weekly internet radio
program (podcast) called ResilienceMN, VRP is interviewing thriving, resilient
veterans in Minnesota. We believe a great way to reach struggling, isolated
veterans is to build trusted relationships with the veterans and veteran service
organizations in their community. Through this interview series, VRP is addressing
what ‘Moral Injury’ is and how the community is connected with both the
decisions that led to war and veterans having the support they need when they
return from war.

7. OUTREACH
PHILOSOPHY
We are one of many in a complex tapestry of
individuals and organizations that have
unsuccessfully dealt with veteran recovery
from war. We believe by helping others to tell
their truth we can inspire the community to
rally around effective programs and services.
VRP has sought to directly address the cultural
differences, power imbalances and other
social driven barriers that have hampered past
efforts to reach out to our veterans. VRP has
developed strategies that address
engagement, therapeutic rapport, and
retention. VRP has been successful in getting
the word out to veterans about the
effectiveness and availability of EMDR therapy.
VRP has succeeded in building working
relationships with the diverse community of
veterans. VRP has even earned the ear of the
VA’s central office leadership.

8. RESULTS
VRP retention rate to date is 77%
Veterans who did not complete were contacted to link
them with other services if needed and to gain input on
what factors led to their dropping out.
27veterans participated in the
data collection
21completed EMDR therapy
6 did not
20veterans were men
7 veterans were women
17of the 27participants completed
“Client Evaluation of
EMDR Therapy.”

9. RESULTS
The most exciting finding was the clinically and statistically
significant improvement in the effectiveness measures (IES and
PCLM) resulting from the EMDR therapy.
The AVERAGE decrease in Impact of Events
scale was 37points!
Pre avg 46.9 – Post avg 9.9
The MEAN pre PCLM was 57
The MEAN post PCLM was 32
The significance of this data proves that
considerable gains were made by these
Veterans in the reduction of their trauma
related distress.

11. CONCLUSIONS
VRP and other similar programs are often the primary source of access to
EMDR therapy for our veterans and military personnel in many areas of the
country. Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure therapy are
the primary PTSD therapies provided to our veterans in the VA and military
yet recent research shows they are of limited effectiveness. Lisa Najavits
(2015) in her review of the research findings with the “gold standard” PTSD
therapies, stated:
“The highest standard for gold-standard therapies would thus
be strong performance in RCTs plus evidence of ability to
retain patients, and their clinicians, under real-world
conditions. In this framework, performance in RCTs alone
would be bronze, performance in real-world conditions would
be silver and the gold—the true EBT champions—would have
to evidence success at both.”

12. CONCLUSIONS
Hoge, et al. stated in relation to the problem of PTSD patients dropping out of
therapy;
“Dropping out of care is clearly the most important predictor
of treatment failure; therefore the most promising strategies
to improve efficacy of evidence-based treatments will be
those that address engagement, therapeutic rapport, and
retention.”
The success of the Veterans Resilience Project and similar clinical
programs and projects that provide EMDR supports that
EMDR is worthy of Gold. The lessons learned from the VRP can
benefit other programs/projects to successfully provide EMDR
therapy to our veterans and military personnel.

13. REFERENCES
PTSD Treatment for Soldiers After Combat Deployment: Low Utilization of
Mental Health Care and Reasons for Dropout. Psychiatry Services. 2014; 65
(8): 997-1000. Charles W. Hoge, M.D., Sasha H. Grossman, B.A., Jennifer L.
Auchterlonie, M.S., Lyndon A. Riviere, Ph.D., Charles Milliken, M.D., Joshua E.
Wilk, Ph.D.
The problem of dropout from “gold standard” PTSD therapies. F1000Prime
Reports 2015, 7:43 (doi: 10.12703/P7-43) Lisa M. Najavits, The electronic
version of this article can be found at:
http://f1000.com/prime/reports/m/7/43
Psychotherapy for Military-Related PTSD; A Review of Randomized Clinical
Trials JAMA. 2015; 314 (5):489-500.Maria M. Steenkamp, Ph.D.; Brett T. Litz,
Ph.D.; Charles W. Hoge, M.D.; Charles R. Marmar, M.D.