EMDR as it is… Sensing and Communicating
In installment #6 of EMDR as it is… we will consider the Biopsychosocial-AIP model of EMDR as an alternative to traditional EMDR therapy. AIP (Adaptive Information Processing) Therapy is a more apt name for a therapy that places interpersonal connection at the center of the model and methods rather than stress reduction. Human disconnection is all about information processing and trauma (PTSD) is only one pathway to it. In AIP therapy the therapeutic relationship is causally responsible for re-connecting the brain, self, and relationships. Analogous to a caregiver and child engaged in mental time travel to make sense of adverse experiences, socialization, and temperamental challenges, it is EMDR as it is, to me. Communication within an informationally rich therapeutic relationship enhances collaboration whether in meeting goals for therapy or life.
In AIP therapy, we make up each other’s umwelt. All organisms come into the world adapted to their umwelt and ours is the social environment. To sense and feel our way around it (like a turtle sensing magnetic north to navigate back to breeding grounds) we need Information processing that includes the establishment and maintenance of a mental model of self and other. Mental models generate the interpersonal environment within which we describe and predict how to collaboratively meet our needs. We imagine what we need, what we think others think we need, and what we think others need. This process often referred to as theory of mind, allows us to navigate in the social environment by communicating about our inner and outer experiences.
What we pay attention to determines what we communicate about. As an information processing tool attention helps us by amplifying some signals and by default, muting others. We can’t communicate about what we are not aware of. So, patterns of paying more or less attention to our experience, our needs, and whether or not others hep us meet our needs/goals is mission critical. My cat Taj is very good at letting me know what he needs. Our ways of communicating are much less complicated that human relationships of course, because we don’t use a sophisticated linguistic form of communication and we don’t intellectualize about our life goals. At least, Taj doesn’t! I like to encourage my clients to consider their relationships with animals because they are often much more connected than those we have with each other precisely because animals don’t manipulate our attention to hide what is going on.
To see what I mean check out this video on a key concept from the science of attention, selective attention. Selective attention refers to how attention selects out information to highlight in the world and in turn neglects to highlight something else. Attention is limited and when we are too rigidly or too loosely focused we loose we miss out on a lot. Like what it is that we need. Taj and I have established a good rhythm for collaborating around our needs and creating an informationally rich relationship where we both communicate non-verbally about what we need. I’ll give an example of how this works. He uses his sense of his self and me to communicate around a simple life goal, eating.
Every morning Taj wakes up hungry. We can imagine the information processing going on inside that gives him the urge to wake up and find his bowl. Being a very social creature, he prefers to have company when he eats. That means Mom or Dad has to come downstairs and follow him to his bowl, where after stretching his legs and doing a figure eight between the bowl and my feet, he will dive in and eat. Now, first and foremost, for us to accomplish this feat of collaboration, Taj has to be aware of the rumble in his stomach. Next, he has to predict that if he can communicate to me that he needs moral support at the bowl, I will come. Since my wife and I have responded in kind many times to this request, he will routinely meow (in what are becoming more an more human like calls!) and we will come. If we are already downstairs, he will begin with pawing at us and only meowing if we ignore his pawing. When we respond in kind by following him to the bowl he will eat.
Taj checking to make sure someone is following!
Why would a cat need someone to accompany them to a meal? When we travel without Taj and he is left overnight without a neighbor checking on him, he will often leave his food, not groom himself (Persians are notorious for needing to clean their eye gook), and not use his litter box. Primates are well known to form bonds through grooming and feeding each other. Taj is no different. It may be easy to gloss over the information processing piece here by talking merely in terms of bonding, nurturance, and care. However, none of this would happen without it. Just like the gorilla in the video above (check it out if you missed it), when we focus on something too rigidly, we don’t see other things, we can’t care for each other if we don’t experience each other. Taj also can’t communicate what he needs if he doesn’t put his attention on his self to know he is here and has needs. Taj’s survival is determined less so by the presence of kibbles and more so by his ability to communicate to the right organism about how to get them.
There was a time when Taj became accustomed to making his way upstairs and climbing into bed with us. It was fun for a time. However, as our relationship grew more responsive and predictable, his bids for attention began to compromise our sleep. I set about establishing some non-verbal boundaries that would help us get the sleep we needed and help Taj become more independent overnight. I placed a gate at the foot of the stairs and bought an automatic feeding bowl with a timer. Every morning at the time we prefer to wake up the food releases with a recorded voice of my wife saying good morning to Taj. After only two nights of training, Taj learned to wait until the food drops before meowing for us to come down and accompany him to his bowl. Then he meets us upstairs for some cuddle time. There are mornings where he doesn’t meow at all. I also like to turn the lights on just after the food drops to offer him another cue that I’ll be there soon!
All of this sensing and communicating is accomplished with just a few non-verbal gestures and signs. Taj has eye contact, meowing, pawing, running, and purring to indicate what state he is in, what he’d like from us, and how urgent matters are. Sometimes it’s as easy as sitting near or on us at a certain time of day when something expected is likely. Other times when we are not so attentive to him, he will progress from presenting himself, to pawing, to meowing with increasing intensity. On occasion he will “forget” to retract his nails when he reaches up to catch our attention. Taj can even correctly interpret the signs we use, like the gate and the light. He is mindful of the pain his nails cause and so he most often retracts them when getting our attention. At the sub-personal, personal, and interpersonal levels information is processed within and between each level. That’s what makes it all work.
This begs the question as to whether Taj is a person. He sure seems like one. We can tackle that in a later installment. For now, let’s notice that Taj’s brain has to process information related to the various states his body is in in order to communicate with us about what he needs. Likewise, so do two people. In AIP therapy consciousness is considered the mechanism of action behind the model. The idea is that in order to do all of this sensing, connecting, and communicating, we have to maintain a model of our selves and others that our brain uses to understand what we and others need. These mental models are themselves information. Just like the gorilla video above, when we don’t pay attention to something for long enough because we are paying attention to something else, that something will fade out of our awareness. Whether Taj is a person or not, his ability to sense and perceive that he is the one asking for what he needs is mission critical to getting them met. Communication about our experience is always at the heart of an information rich relationship.
When we engage in AIP therapy and formulate what is going on that therapy can help with, patterns of disconnection we experience within ourselves and our relationships will be important to identify. Where we have little or no voice, are afraid to speak about our needs, or are harmed if we do, is where our brain has been rewired to pay attention to something else instead of what we need. It could be a substance we’ve become addicted to, working to the point of over doing it, fantasies about ourselves and others that have little to do with what we actually need and the like. The dissolution of our perception of our self will cause serious biopsychosocial problems and a list of traumas will not be sufficient to describe and explain why. However, understanding what got in the way and gets in the way of sensing and communicating about what we need will go a long way.
