J Appl Res Intellect Disabil. 2019;1–13. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jar | 1 Published for the British Institute of Learning Disabilities © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 | INTRODUCTION Reported prevalence rates for post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among people with intellectual disabilities vary widely from 2.5% to 60% (Mevissen & De Jongh, 2010), but are likely to be higher among people with intellectual disabilities as they are more likely to experience adverse life events than the general pop‐ ulation (Hatton & Emerson, 2004; Sequeira & Hollins, 2003), in part because they are more likely to experience loss and are more vulnerable to abuse. Such experiences lead to trauma‐related mental health problems and psychopathology (Hulbert‐Williams, Hastings, Crowe, & Pemberton, 2011; Wigham, Taylor, & Hatton, 2014). People with intellectual disabilities may be more vulnera‐ ble to the effects of stressful and traumatic experiences due to impairments in stress appraisal, difficulties in appraising and pro‐ cessing information, difficulties in reasoning and adaptability, a need for a structured and predictable environment, and a limited behaviour repertoire leading to reduced successful avoidance of Received: 21 March 2018 | Revised: 8 October 2018 | Accepted: 22 November 2018 DOI: 10.1111/jar.12557 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing for adults with intellectual disabilities: Process issues from an acceptability study Gemma Unwin 1 | Sara Willott 2 | Stacey Hendrickson 1 | Biza Stenfert Kroese 1 1 School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK 2 Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK Correspondence Gemma Unwin, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK. Email: G.L.Unwin@bham.ac.uk Funding information Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust funded this project. Abstract Background: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is recom‐ mended for post‐traumatic stress disorder and emerging evidence indicates that it is effective for people with intellectual disabilities. However, acceptability from the perspectives of clients with intellectual disabilities, their therapists and other key people has not been formally evaluated. This study investigates process is‐ sues in the implementation of EMDR from perspectives of multiple stakeholders. Method: Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with two adults with intellec‐ tual disabilities and three clinical psychologists who had participated in EMDR as well as a key supporter (N = 6) to provide information relating to three cases. The inter‐ views were analysed thematically either directly from the audio recording or from transcripts. Results: Five themes were identified: EMDR feels very different; EMDR is a technical process; the need to work with the present; talking is important; cautious optimism. Conclusions: Whilst a range of client‐ and therapist‐related factors served as barriers to using EMDR in this small‐scale study, such as preferences in working with the present and inexperienced therapists, there was cautious optimism that EMDR may be useful for “the right person at the right time.”. KEYWORDS eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, mental health problems, post‐traumatic stress disorder, therapy, trauma