EMDR Glossary: Adaptive Information Processing Model

You’re trying to learn everything about EMDR that you can, and you keep seeing all of these words and phrases that make no sense!  It’s all confusing and sounds a little strange (and maybe even scary). 

Well, welcome to Cannon Psychology’s EMDR Glossary.  I’ll be updating this regularly, and today we’ll start with the “Adaptive Information Processing Model” (also known as “AIP”).

The Adaptive Information Processing Model (formerly known as the “Accelerated Processing Model”) is the main underlying theory behind EMDR. This model suggests that your brain and body naturally know how to heal themselves. 

Have you ever had stitches?  The doctor isn’t healing your skin, she’s just creating the environment (i.e. stitching your skin together) so that your body can do what it already knows how to do:  heal.

Trauma Memory Storage

It’s believed that in trauma memory storage, your brain didn’t know how to “file away” the incident - and so it stored the memory as though it just happened to you.  That’s why anything remotely similar to the trauma can trigger it and cause a resurgence of the same emotions, physical sensations and beliefs that occurred during the trauma.  

Many clients will say that they actually “feel” the same age they were when the incident happened as we are in the midst of EMDR.  It is hypothesized that this is because this memory is stored in a different part of the brain (a different “neural network”), and it does not have access to the “adult” lessons you have learned over the years.  This “child” memory is being activated and cannot “talk” to the adult neural networks in your brain.  

EMDR Helps You Access Your Coping Skills

This is why you can go to a lot of therapy, be able to rattle off a list of coping skills, but when you are triggered by your trauma, it all goes out the window.  You don’t have access to the neural network that holds all of those coping skills!  The Adaptive Information Processing Model posits that EMDR allows these neural networks to connect to each other so your “child neural network” can get ahold of the positive coping skills you have learned over the years.

In Adaptive Information Processing, your EMDR psychologist is creating the environment for healing and allowing your brain to do what it needs to connect your adaptive neural networks and file the memory away into long term memory.  Your EMDR psychologist is there to help guide things along - but if they make a suggestion (a cognitive interweave) that doesn’t fit for you, your brain will reject it - because your brain knows what fits and what doesn’t!

So, in a nutshell, in EMDR we are reactivating the memory that’s “stuck” and creating the environment for your brain to do it’s own healing - much like stitches or a cast on your arm.  

In EMDR Therapy, Your Happy Memories Will Become Stronger

If a client and I are processing the death of a loved one, they are often afraid that they will forget all of the good memories of that person.  Adaptive Information Processing actually accesses and strengthens those good memories, while healing the trauma of losing your loved one.  This way, rather than bringing up the trauma when you think about your loved one, you recall the positive aspects of your relationship.  It’s not as though you forget the trauma, it just doesn’t have the same power it used to, it’s placed in the overall story of your relationship with that person, and it’s not the defining factor it once was. You can read about my personal experience with this here.

Experience Adaptive Information Processing firsthand, click here to book a free 15 minute video consultation for online EMDR Therapy and PTSD treatment in California.

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