EMDR as it is… Sensing and Moving
The life enhancing information processing perspective of EMDR was inspired by my growing awareness of the role information processing plays in all life. Through my work with clients, my own EMDR therapy, and ongoing research within and beyond the field of psychotherapy, I have been inspired by the ubiquity of information processing involved in the evolution, development, and ongoing maintenance of life. No less intriguing are the origins of life in inanimate processes that rely on and can be understood by information processing concepts. The organic and inorganic worlds have been making magic since the beginning. Likewise, our human capacity for connection and communication involves an exchange of information, transformation of forms, and creativity.
In this blog series I will be highlighting a few of my favorite examples of information processing concepts we find in organisms you might not think about when you think about EMDR. “EMDR as it is…” will help answer the question, “Why is EMDR such a robust psychotherapy ?”. We will notice what is already around us that is known through our experience and supported by scientific research. If we suspend our assumptions of therapy, it’s limits, and it’s function while we consider how other organisms make use of their information processing systems, we can understand what is known and yet to be confirmed by science. To help with this we will keep in mind the continuity of life concept described by philosopher Evan Thompson, that evolutionary process of life building on structures and functions that can be found across the spectrum of umwelten. We will ask ourselves, “What is the human umwelt ?” and how is it similar or unique compared to other species? Most of all how does information processing fit into our attempt to thrive in our environment as a very social organism. We will think about EMDR more broadly to include ideas and concepts that are fundamentally relevant to but not exclusive to trauma therapy.
To focus our story on EMDR I will highlight a few basic concepts of the Biopsychosocial-AIP model as they are relevant to the case formulation process found in phase 1 of the 8-step EMDR protocol. Case formulation involves the creation of a hypothesis about how our past experiences, present perceptions, and future predictions disconnect us from ourselves, others, and the physical environment around us. This is a crucial piece of EMDR that can bring out the robustness of the therapy approach when carefully considered. Information processing is relevant to our lives beyond any single traumatic event or function of any discreet neurophysiological system in our brain. We are traveling through time all day long as we attempt to meet our needs. We can do so in a more or less connected or disconnected way. The consequences related to how we are meeting our needs (or failing to) can be more or less self-defeating. In light of these realities, simple traumas and complex relational, cultural, and existential traumas lend themselves to a Biopsychosocial-AIP approach. An approach that considers the relationship between information processing and trauma in the context of living out our lives.
To begin let’s consider one of the simplest of organisms… the Euglena. This single celled creature is simple in design and directly reveals our first key insight. Information processing enhances our ability to meet our needs by allowing us to sense and move about in our environment. The Euglena is a Protista, an organism that has characteristics of plant life and animal life. Like plants, it uses photosynthesis to convert light energy into chemical energy. The chemical energy is produced in the form of carbon compounds that can be consumed by other organisms. The Euglena also eats such organic matter like animals do. It relies on both plant and animal like processes to provide nutrients for it’s body and energy for locomotion. All life forms exhibit properties related to sorting out between what is in their environment that is good for living and moving in space and time to get to good things. The sensing and moving of protistas has been observed as behavior and some minimal social properties are documented. However, success in the Euglena’s umwelt requires far less social behavior than ours.
We could begin with plants. It is hard to imagine plants moving, but they do. They move so slowly we have to use special time lapsed equipment to see it. Just as fascinating is to consider how they have moved at an evolutionary pace from the water to the land. They were among the first organisms to move from one umwelt to another successfully. I like to think of plants as the first larger organisms that bridged the world between inanimate and animate forms on our planet. They use inorganic matter (non-carbon) to produce organic matter (carbon) leading the way for insects, bird, and animals to live off of organic matter. Today we exist as mostly water (inorganic) surrounded by a body (organic) in collaboration, persisting forward in very complex ways but with the same atomic and molecular processes on board.
Despite it’s size, the Euglena’s body can be seen moving about in real time under a microscope. It is propelled by a whip like flagella.
Euglena Gracillis
It also has an eyespot (stigma) for sensing light. It works by sorting out the intensity and direction of light. It will move towards more intense light and away from less intense light (darkness) and overly intense light. Its a simple system. The eyespot operates like an “etch-a-sketch” toy using these 2 variables associated with light in it’s environment to direct its flagella. Why is light so important? Light and water (inorganic) are key ingredients of photosynthesis which produces sugar, starch, glycogen, and cellulose (organic).
In the umwelt of the Euglena we see how information processing allows life to take place in a meaningful direction by sorting out how much of a good thing is good for it and what is just plain bad. All life consists of some mix of organic and inorganic matter combining within a body which moves toward life sustaining things and away from threats to life. Light means something to the Euglena because of it’s form, how it is structured and organized to live in a certain environment. There is a connection and communication between the eyespot and flagella to makes sense of light intensity. The nucleus of the Euglena provides coordination between the eyespot and flagella to make use of information regarding the direction of the light. In single celled organisms without a nucleus (prokaryotes) life involves sensing light intensity but not the direction of light. The nucleus of the eukaryotes serves a function related to the coordination of perception and movement as with the Euglena.
The coordination achieved by connecting and communicating within the organism about the environment is what adaptive information processing is all about. In the case of the Euglena this is all done directly with non-neural structures. That is to say, it does not have neurons, ganglion, neural circuits, neural networks, or a brain. We might say it is more directly connected to what is going on and it achieves this without all of the complex neural architecture we operate with. Impressive! Its no more or less superior to how we do life, it reflects a different organism in environment relationship.
The important thing to take away about EMDR is to see the continuity of experience between us and the Euglena. We too need to coordinate sensing and moving about to live well. We too do this in part by more direct means. Our body is just as full of organic and inorganic matter accomplishing information processing all the time at the atomic and molecular level without need of a nervous system. In fact, our nervous system which models what is going can get in the way of the more direct non-neural processes we use to live well. Of course our ability to model what is going on inside and outside of our body can enhance how we meet our needs as well, in ways that reflect how social we are (more on that later).
The Euglena’s umwelt is full of randomness and unpredictability by virtue of how its design has been shaped to fit its environment full of organic and inorganic molecules it needs to choose between. It makes choices, organizes its boundaries, and exerts control without a neural system for attention, memory, pain identification, emotional intelligence, self, nor social cognition devoted to these tasks.
EMDR Case Formulation
An important part of beginning EMDR is formulating a hypothesis about how our neural system for processing autobiographical memory has been negatively effected by our experience in our environment and has led to problems we are having in life. It may be that we are inhibited from reaching goals we have and our system for sensing and moving (vis a vis memory) is thwarting our ability to make choices, organize our boundaries, and exert control over how we meet our needs. Will our EMDR methods be sufficient to promote the memory consolidation that is ultimate goal of EMDR? Is memory consolidation all that EMDR can help with? Are the positive outcomes that we know are likely to occur directly attributable to memory consolidation alone? What about adaptive information processing theory can explain positive effects beyond it?
All of these questions are getting at the causal properties of the innate healing system EMDR therapists are trained to describe to clients. In other words where is the source of the healing going to come from? The therapist must explain to the client how EMDR works. That is, “what will cause what to happen that leads to a positive treatment outcome”? A robust EMDR experience will include a biopsychosocial-AIP perspective to describe and explain how we, like the Euglena, process information from the simplest levels to the most complex. There are processes going on sub-personally, personally, and interpersonally that form the innate healing system.
Is it possible that when we engage in EMDR psychotherapy, that molecular changes occur both related to memory consolidation and beyond. See what professor of molecular science, Seth Grant, is learning about the changes within the synapses of neurons where inorganic and organic molecular information processing is taking place. There is much to say about how the Euglena processes information without the need for a neural system for attention, memory, pain identification, emotional intelligence, self, nor social cognition. I tell my clients during the case formulation process, “When we get to step 4 of EMDR (the procedural steps for trauma processing) we will be letting you brain do the work. Our use of ourselves and the therapeutic relationship becomes a support to the processes that will be carried on by cells not unlike the Euglena. We will trust the life giving process of information processing to take place, just as it does with the Euglena.
At the same time, we do life very differently than the Euglena. We do have neural systems for attention, memory, pain identification, emotional intelligence, self, and social cognition. These systems make up the psychosocial aspects of the innate healing system of EMDR and help us explain how all 8 steps of EMDR are necessary to cause positive treatment outcomes. We engage in adaptive information processing as a whole person in relationship with another person and sometimes that fact needs to be the primary focus of EMDR (more on that later). For now, let’s keep in mind that our brain is always actively interacting with our environment using sub-personal, personal, and interpersonal experiences to sense and move to live and that its all part of the same physical process with properties we can learn to understand.
There are many single celled organisms, bacteria, and viruses that show us how ubiquitous sensing and moving is to life. When your EMDR therapist tells you that EMDR is a body based therapy and you wonder, “What? I thought it was about trauma and processing memories?”, remember the Euglena. As you progress through your case formulation perhaps before you consider what memories you may need to process, think about how you are sensing and moving in the world first. Where do you notice you are most connected to yourself, others, and the goals you have for life? Where do you notice disconnection between and within yourself, relationships, and plans for living? Your body will be your guide as you sort out your perceptions, share them with a trusting helper, and act in more informed ways.
