Healing Trauma: The 6 Key Parts of AIP/EMDR Therapy

Most people will experience at least some form of trauma in their lifetime. This might be the loss of a loved one, a tragic accident, or an illness. These instances are just part of life, and most people will be fine after processing them. However, for some people, the trauma they experience can be more impactful, either because of the type of trauma or a difficulty in processing it. Healing trauma for these individuals is a priority because, without the right attention, trauma can manifest into mental illness and/or addiction. The good news is that there are many effective ways to manage trauma, including the use of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.

Healing Trauma: The 6 Key Parts of AIP/EMDR Therapy

The adaptive information processing (AIP) model is the key component of the EMDR model. But what exactly is AIP? According to the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, “This theory posits that many forms of psychopathology, with PTSD as the most notable example, stem from disruptive life experiences. According to the AIP model, these experiences are consolidated into neural networks as distressing mental images, dysfunctional cognitions, negative emotions, and physical sensations…. The AIP model predicts that adverse events throughout life are stored as unprocessed memories, which can then be triggered and activated by specific environmental circumstances.” 

There are also 6 key components to the AIP/EMDR process. These are the brain’s focus on healing, understanding trauma’s impact, the manifestation of symptoms, the facilitation process, connecting adaptive networks, and adaptive learning. Utilizing this process can be an ideal way to recover from the issues brought about by trauma, such as mental illness and/or addiction. Of course, one has to be aware that they are struggling with trauma in the first place.

This may seem obvious, but it is not the case. The issue with trauma is that it has a distinct way of lying undetected for many years. Many people are unaware that they are even dealing with trauma until they seek help for the very symptoms that their trauma created. For example, one may seek help for alcohol use disorder (AUD) only to later discover that they were drinking to cope with underlying undiagnosed trauma. Many times, this trauma occurs in childhood, and as children, we have the ability to bury it away because we don’t have access to other options.

Better Understanding Trauma

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), “Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. Trauma has no boundaries regarding age, gender, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation… and it is especially common in the lives of people with mental and substance use disorders.” Trauma also affects more people than you may think.

The peer-reviewed thesis Acute and Chronic Mental Health Trauma, by Doctors Feriante and Sharma, explains, “According to multiple worldwide surveys of exposure to traumatic events, including findings from the World Mental Health Survey Consortium, which derived survey data from 24 countries, approximately 70% of respondents reported experiencing lifetime traumas. A more recent international study from 2022 surveyed over 50,000 individuals and confirmed the same finding, with an average of 3.2 traumatic experiences per capita. The incidence and types of trauma sustained varied across age and socioeconomic factors.” These traumas, if untreated, can lead to many issues.

Better Understanding Trauma, Addiction, and Mental Illness

It is not the trauma itself that people often need help with. Traumas are simply negative events that happen. It is the inability to process these traumas that leads to serious issues. This may involve the trauma manifesting itself into a mental illness like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is perhaps the most common outcome of untreated trauma.

Many people have heard the term PTSD, but are unfamiliar with what exactly it is. It is a disorder that occurs as a direct result of trauma or a series of traumatic events. According to The British Medical Journal (BMJ), “About 3% of the adult population has PTSD at any one time. Lifetime prevalence is between 1.9% and 8.8%, but this rate doubles in populations affected by conflict and reaches more than 50% in survivors of rape. Symptoms include persistent intrusive recollections, avoidance of stimuli related to the trauma, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and hyperarousal.”

Another common outcome of undiagnosed trauma is addiction. This is because many people use alcohol and substances to try to cope with their emotions associated with trauma. This may work for a short period of time to numb the emotional pain, but ultimately, it will stop working and can lead to addiction. This can create a complex situation in recovery because it creates co-occurring disorders. Now one must treat both their trauma as well as their addiction. This is also why it is so important to work with professionals who are schooled in dual diagnosis. EMDR is also ideal for treating these co-occurring disorders.

A Focus on EMDR

So, what exactly is EMDR? According to the peer-reviewed journal Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, “Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a specific treatment modality that utilizes bilateral stimulation to help individuals who have experienced trauma. This stimulation can occur in a variety of forms, including left-right eye movements, tapping on the knees, headphones, or handheld buzzers, known as tappers. This type of psychotherapy allows individuals to redefine their self-assessment and responses to a given traumatic event in eight defined steps.”

This process can be highly effective and is also ideal because it does not require any outside commitments. EMDR also has very minimal side effects, which make it appealing to many people. On rare occasions, people complain of short-lived headaches or moments of discomfort due to intense moments. However, these are also the moments that lead to the biggest breakthroughs.

Healing Trauma: The Brain’s Focus on Healing

The reality is that the brain processes information in a very strict and structured way. Trauma disrupts this process, and this disruption is what can lead to the most negative symptoms associated with trauma.

However, the brain also has the ability to heal itself with the right attention. EMDR’s stimulation helps the brain to process new ways of managing old traumatic memories.

Healing Trauma: Understanding Trauma’s Impact

According to SAMHSA, “Trauma, including one-time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive events, affects everyone differently… The impact of trauma can be subtle, insidious, or outright destructive. How an event affects an individual depends on many factors, including characteristics of the individual, the type and characteristics of the event(s), developmental processes, the meaning of the trauma, and sociocultural factors.” Ultimately, no one is immune to trauma, and there is no way of knowing when a traumatic situation may occur.

It is also important to remember that trauma does not just affect the individual struggling. The symptoms of trauma can ripple out and affect the whole family. This is why trauma and resulting mental illnesses and addictions are often referred to as “family diseases.” They can be “family destroyers” as well. This is also why it is critical to get the entire family help during the recovery process. 

Healing Trauma: How Symptoms Manifest

Trauma symptoms manifest over time. This is why they can be so insidious, because the actual event may have long passed before any of the symptoms are externally present. The symptoms of trauma also vary depending on the individual and the situation. However, there are some universal emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical symptoms. The following are just a few:

• Feelings of fear, shame, anger, and guilt
• Being detached and feeling emotionally numb
• Trouble regulating emotions and becoming easily agitated
• Struggling to concentrate and focus on tasks
• Avoiding places, people, and things that remind you of the trauma
• Becoming hypervigilant
• Experiencing intrusive memories and flashbacks
• Struggles with sleep cycles
• Feeling overly exhausted
• Experiencing physical sensations like trembling and sweaty palms
• Having suicidal ideations

As one can see, these symptoms can be very serious. This is why seeking professional help as soon as symptoms appear is critical. Doing so can mean the difference between short-term side effects and long-term consequences.

Healing Trauma: EMDR as a Facilitator

The goal of EMDR is to help an individual process their traumatic memories in a healthy way. This reduces the emotional impact of the memories and can help the individual move forward.

EMDR can help an individual see the negative way in which they have been viewing themselves and the world around them. Through the specific process of EMDR, addressing these views leads to addressing and changing the negative behaviors associated with them.

EMDR has also been shown to specifically help facilitate recovery for individuals struggling with co-occurring issues of PTSD and addiction. According to the peer-reviewed journal BMC Psychiatry, “Trauma-focused PTSD treatment among patients with SUD may also effectively reduce SUD symptoms. Patients with PTSD and SUD report higher levels of craving in response to trauma-related cues than patients with PTSD. Therefore, these patients might be more likely to use substances to regulate negative affective states associated with PTSD.”

Healing Trauma: Connecting Adaptive Networks

Trauma can create maladaptive memory networks that get “stuck” in the mind. This is why the issue of “racing thoughts” often manifests in individuals who struggle with trauma.

EMDR can help to create healthy adaptive networks that help an individual navigate their traumatic memories in healthy ways. It can also offer an individual the right coping skills to move forward when uncomfortable situations arise. For individuals struggling with addiction, these are uncomfortable situations that can lead to a potential relapse.

Healing Trauma: Recovery and Adaptive Learning

Ultimately, EMDR can help to replace negatively charged traumatic memories with more positive information. This is also referred to as adaptive learning. It can create new healthy neural pathways in the brain.

EMDR can also help shift negative beliefs into positive ones. It can literally reframe one’s life in a positive light. This makes the process of moving forward in recovery significantly smoother. It also aids in more positive outcomes with other treatment modalities.

The Multi-Angled Approach: EMDR and Other Modalities

While EMDR can be ideal for recovery, it is not the only treatment that one should use. This is because recovery best runs on a multi-angled approach. This simply means that the more modalities one engages with, the more positive the outcome they will experience.

Now, it is recommended that one’s recovery plans have a foundation of evidence-based treatments (like EMDR). These are simply treatment modes that have a long track record of efficacy. This includes psychotherapies like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).

There are also two other avenues of recovery that can be very helpful. These include experiential therapies like nature immersion therapy and art therapy, and holistic healing methods like yoga therapy and mindfulness meditation. Here at Exclusive Hawaii Rehab™, we find that an individualized approach using the multi-angled method is highly effective for healing at the cellular level.

EMDR and CBT

It is very common for people to utilize both EMDR and CBT while in recovery. This is because they both address underlying issues of trauma, but merely utilize different approaches.

CBT can be particularly helpful for individuals struggling with co-occurring issues of addiction because it focuses on the motivations one has to drink or use substances. According to The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, “CBT for substance use disorders captures a broad range of behavioral treatments including those targeting operant learning processes, motivational barriers to improvement, and [a] traditional variety of other cognitive-behavioral interventions. Overall, these interventions have demonstrated efficacy in controlled trials and may be combined with each other or with pharmacotherapy to provide more robust outcomes.” CBT also works well with experiential therapies.

EMDR and Experiential Therapies

In order to get past negative memories, we have to create new positive ones. This is where experiential therapy can be so helpful. This is because the very nature of the therapy offers an opportunity for new positive experiences. For example, connecting with nature on the Hamakua Coast of Hawaii’s Big Island (which is where Exclusive Hawaii Rehab™ is conveniently located) is a great opportunity to create positive memories. Whether it be the beautiful beaches, outstanding overlooks, wonderful waterfalls, or even the live volcano, there are amazing landscapes to help you reconnect with what it means to be part of Mother Earth.

Nature immersion therapy also offers a myriad of other benefits. According to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, “Overall, natural environments can have a positive impact on health and well-being. Being outdoors in nature can be, in general, health-promoting. Furthermore, being outdoors can stimulate all the senses, increase the feeling of freedom, and have a positive effect on the immune system.”

There are other types of nature immersion that are ideal on the Hamakua Coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. A mere 15-minute journey from our luxury 30-acre property sits one of the best surf breaks on the island. Here is where you can catch amazing waves while meditating between breaks. At Exclusive Hawaii Rehab™, we also have an amazing landscape that is perfect for horticulture therapy. Here, clients can get their hands dirty and reconnect with themselves as they reconnect with the soil.

Healing at the Cellular Level With Exclusive Hawaii Rehab™

Here at Exclusive Hawaii Rehab™, we believe in long-term success over short-term “fixes.” We believe in healing at the cellular level, which is why all of our recovery plans are individualized and comprehensive, with a focus on the future.

Trauma and its symptoms need no longer rule your life. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, then the time to recover is now. You can do this! We can help.

Many people are unaware of the relationship between adaptive information processing (AIP) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR). The reality is that there are six key elements behind AIP and EMDR therapy that help uncover and heal trauma. This can be beneficial for those struggling with issues of mental health and addiction associated with unaddressed trauma. If you feel like you or a loved one is struggling with issues of addiction, mental illness, or both, we can help get you on the right road to recovery right away. You don’t have to go through this process alone. For more information about AIP and EMDR, please reach out to Exclusive Hawaii Rehab™ today at (808) 775-0200.