The Adaptive Information Processing Model

The Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model is the theoretical framework Francine Shapiro developed to explain EMDR. Its central claim is that the brain has an innate information-processing system that normally integrates experiences into adaptive memory networks, and that trauma occurs when this system is overwhelmed and a memory is stored in a dysfunctional, insufficiently processed form.

The AIP model is a clinical theory rather than a fully specified neuroscientific mechanism, but it is consistent with contemporary memory-reconsolidation research and provides a coherent conceptual map for EMDR's eight-phase protocol.

Clinically, the AIP model implies that presenting symptoms are frequently rooted in earlier unprocessed experiences. Case conceptualization in EMDR therefore includes identifying past adverse events (touchstone memories), present triggers and future templates, and processing them in a way that lets the innate system finish what it started. Bilateral stimulation is the procedural element used to facilitate that processing.