The AIP Model and EMDR Therapy Meet Dissociation

In practice, EMDR therapists have for years observed how bilateral dual-attention stimulation (BL-DAS) may be experienced as dysregulating, or alternatively, largely impotent as a catalyst for change in individuals with complex trauma and dissociation. The neurobiological correlates point the way to understanding why – sometimes – EMDR does not work so well in the treatment of dissociation. The adaptive information processing (AIP) model was developed through Francine Shapiro’s use of EMD and its evolutionary successor, the ‘standard protocol’ of EMDR, treating people with PTSD and complex trauma without severe dissociative symptoms (i.e., distinct self-states and/or pervasive retrograde or contemporaneous amnesia). For this reason, the model is unavoidably founded upon the assumption that all people possess both an adequately integrated sense of self before overwhelmingly painful experience intrudes and explicit recall of this experience. In this chapter, attention will first be given to the hypothesized mechanisms of action in EMDR therapy, focusing on the interaction of BL-DAS and dissociative phenomena. Then, the development and basic tenets of the AIP model will be discussed. With those concepts and challenges in mind, the AIP model will be revisited to delve more deeply into its intricacies to illuminate its dissociative gaps and propose a means for bridging these to accommodate conceptualizing treatment with dissociative clients.