Podcast #17: Adaptive Information Processing Theory (AIP)
Intro:
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Podcast:
Curtis: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. I’m Curtis Smith your host. Thanks for being with us on the podcast. Today, we are joined by one of the great counselors here at Crosswinds Counseling. It’s Mindy Tiburcio. Mindy thank you for being with us today.
Mindy: Thank you.
Curtis: We are talking about Adaptive Information Processing.
Mindy: Yeah.
Curtis: What is that like? We come into a lot of these conversations, and I have some idea of what we’re talking about, and I can, you know I’m a human – I can get some of the concepts around counseling. I don’t really know what we’re talking about today. What is it?
Mindy: It’s, yeah, Adaptive Information Processing is – it’s a theory that’s based out of a lot of trauma. It’s based out of the idea that our brain adapts in various situations. It is a theory that drives EMDR. So, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a technique used for trauma – it’s a trauma-based therapy. But AIP or Adaptive Information Processing is the idea that our brain, when we go through experiences, it starts to take in all the information, the sensory information, kind of that biofeedback, and it starts to code it in our brain. And it’s the organizational aspect in a sense of our brain. I sometimes explain the brain to my clients as if our brain is like a filing system, a filing cabinet. Everything gets labeled. It gets organized. Everything gets filed away. But AIP would say it does get filed away, but if you go through certain experiences, like a trauma, trauma kind of throws that whole organizational system kind of out the door.
Curtis: Yeah.
Mindy: It starts to reorganize the brain in different ways. The example I can also give too, is when you think about a child you know. Mom tells them not to touch the stove, the stovetop, when it’s hot. Right. Once they do that, that experience starts to get code different. It’s not just the stove that Mom told me not to touch. There’s now this sensory experience of, ‘Man, that was really really painful.’ And so there’s a lot more importance at not touching it because you’ve taken in some painful sensory information regarding that situation.
And, so, AIP would say, ‘Hey, with more information we get we’re going to recode some of this stuff in our brain based on some of that sensory information and the feedback we got.’ And it changes then how we organize it. Now with big traumatic events the struggle can become – some of those situations are so big, or so overwhelming, it’s really hard to organize them well. There can be blocks. There can be aspects of it that says, ‘Hey, we want to be safe, but if we start to process that we’re not going to be safe.’
Curtis: Wow. So how do you get people to work through that? How do you get them, I guess, first, might even be just the understanding that that’s happening. That trauma has kind of reset your brain.
I love that picture you gave us of, it’s kind of a filing cabinet, a filing system and trauma messes with all the files. So, I assume just being aware of that is going to be the first step. Right.
Mindy: Yeah, I think being aware of it. Understanding it. I think we probably all, you know when I say it, and we start to think about it, you know I’ll go back to the kid with the stove. We as adults all know, yeah you [don’t] touch the stove especially if it’s hot, don’t touch it.
Curtis: Right.
Mindy: But how many of us have had to go through [the] experience when we were a little kid, and we actually touched it, and our brain finally said, ‘Oh yeah, now I know why not to touch this,’ kind of thing. And so, it kind of helped recode it I think. So it is being aware. It’s being aware of what are you taking away from various situations. When we think trauma, there’s a lot of times people don’t notice that they come away with very big negative core beliefs. You know, for example, with that kid touching that stove, they may come away and say, ‘Well, I should listen to Mom more. I’m not a good listener to Mom because I touched it even when she told me [not to] and then I got this painful situation.’ Trauma can cause these negative core beliefs about ourselves because that’s our way of processing or trying to deal with it in the moment, even though it may not be processing all the information or even in a good spot for us to process the information – if that makes sense.
Curtis: Yeah. Barely, honestly. So yeah, I’m trying to just – I love the example of touching the stove and then you take it a step further to just general listening to Mom, but I’m trying to think about then how does that get into the kind of issues that would lead someone into counseling.
Mindy: Yeah, so [the stovetop] example may not be the best for leading into counseling, but if we think about a situation where, let’s say if child gets yelled at, at school, or by Mom or Dad and they come away with, ‘Man, I’m not good enough,’ or, ‘I’m unwanted.’ All of a sudden you have this very big negative core belief.
Curtis: Yeah.
Mindy: That, if it’s not processed or not addressed, it’s kind of sitting out there in the back of their mind. We would call it ‘starting to create a neural pathway.’ Neural pathways are those pathways that are easy to go down because we’ve started them, and if we don’t adapt them, or don’t address them, they continue to pop up in various situations so that [neural pathway the] five-year-old made, now 10-15 years later depending on what that negative core belief [is] may come into other situations where that same thought continues to happen. I’ve worked with clients that are in their 60s, and as we process through, they have the same core belief at 60 as they did at five years old because it just comes across the timeline in various experiences, and the longer and more farther it goes, the stronger the wiring of that neural pathway.
Curtis: Huh. So is it – this feels like something maybe more prevalent in childhood when our brain is developing, but I’m wondering if even as adults trauma can do the resetting of our brain, and it becomes an issue even in your 20s, 30s, 40s or whatever…
Mindy: Yeah. I’ll use a great example, this would be personal, last year I had a pretty significant ankle injury, and part of me had that fear of, I can’t go out and go – because I did it playing softball. It took me a lot of work to not have that fear. ‘Okay I can go play softball again, my ankle’s fixed. It’s okay.’ And that was at, in my mid-30s. Yeah, like there was a fear there that said, ‘Hey, you can’t do this anymore.’ All because, more of a brain aspect and, being worries of, ‘Am I going to end up in surgery again with an ankle injury and recovering for six months?’
Curtis: So, tell me about your brain then. So have you started playing softball again?
Mindy: I have.
Curtis: And were you able to successfully get your brain to kind of go back to its old filing system.
Mindy: Yeah. A little bit. I’m still – it’s not that I can completely go back because I can’t erase that situation. I can’t erase that, I have you know a lot of metal in my ankle, and have scars on it showing it, but I’ve learned to adapt. I can go back. I can play. Can I run as fast? Maybe not. Do I cut as much as I used to? Probably not. Because there’s still a little bit of that fear.
Curtis: Yeah.
Mindy: But it doesn’t paralyze me to where I can’t go do it again – where I can’t go play softball.
Curtis: I suppose it’s actually healthy to not be able to completely block it out. Right? Like there’s got to be something healthy to remembering, acknowledging, ‘Hey my ankle got hurt,’ or whatever the traumatic event is, you don’t want to completely forget it. Right?
Mindy: Correct. We’ll go back to the stove top example. If you’re a kid who touches their hand on a stove top and gets burned, and you all of a sudden totally forget that experience, what’s the likelihood you may touch it again?
Curtis: Right. High. So that would be bad.
Mindy: Yeah.
Curtis: Yeah, and I suppose that is true in all traumatic events. There’s some good that can come out of them, and come out of remembering them. How do you get someone to get to that space where they can remember that, where they can acknowledge happened, and there’s some good lesson there for them, but where it doesn’t become crippling, and it doesn’t become debilitating, and keep them from moving forward.
Mindy: Yeah, it can be a long process, depending on how long that negative core belief, that trauma has been there, and as far as a therapy standpoint you know CBT – cognitive behavioral, EMDR are very much known. There’s a lot of research that say they’re best for trauma, and the reality is part of it just starts by building safety. Giving clients a safe place to talk about those really tough things. Building a rapport where they can say, ‘Hey, can I lean on you when the stuff that’s overwhelming comes up?’ Because they have to build their ability, their confidence, and their ability to know they can handle whatever may come up when they think about that trauma.
Curtis: I suspect that a lot of people would actually have trauma related to the fact that they can’t trust people too.
Mindy: Absolutely.
Curtis: You’re asking – so getting them over that hurdle, you’re asking them to maybe even get over the thing that might have been traumatic for them.
Mindy: Correct, and it’s – and there’s a huge, there’s a long process with that. There’s a long process even with identifying – number one getting them in the office. Getting them to feel safe. To even explore, ‘Hey, what are those negative core beliefs with those traumas?’ Because to even think about talking about a trauma, or what came out of the trauma. It can be really tough, and it can trigger some of those flashbacks, or those memories of traumatic situations.
Curtis: Wow. Mindy, great stuff and a great reminder for all of us. We say this often. Crosswinds counselors are able to bring their faith into conversations but Crosswinds counselors are licensed. They’re degreed. They have evidence-based practices that they use all the time. They’re obviously very educated, and they know what they’re talking about. And Mindy, you’ve given us a great reminder of that today with a lot of good in-depth talk about our brain. How we’re wired. How we think. How we feel. And boy it’s just been a really enlightening conversation. So thank you Mindy for sharing your time with us.
Mindy: Yeah.
Curtis: Thank you for being with us today on the podcast. We will see you next time on Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling.
Outro:
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