Acts, urges, and states in AIP: The role of action tendencies and action systems in effective, ineffective, and disrupted reprocessing

Why do some patients respond simply and positively to standard EMDR reprocessing while others show occasional, mild ineffective responses that can be resolved quickly with interweaves? Why do some patients present disrupted reprocessing sessions time after time, even when they want to work with their traumatic issues. Strong, structural defensive avoidance is one of the most complex issues to manage in EMDR therapy Interweaves, which are so helpful with ordinary ineffective reprocessing, fail to resolve the defensive barriers that produce disrupted reprocessing (Leeds, 2016). The answers to these questions take us into the fundamental nature of the evolutionary origins of the adaptive information processing system in the neurobiological affective circuits which are its foundation and into the role of early attachment experiences in the development of these affective circuits and the action tendencies that shape human psychology. This presentation proposes an integrative framework for understanding and optimizing the underlying dynamic processes hidden within EMDR reprocessing. We examine and review elements of the adaptive information processing model of Francine Shapiro (1991, 1995, 2001), the theory of a hierarchy of action tendencies of Pierre Janet (1934), the theory of structural dissociation of the personality developed by Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele (2006), Jaak Panksepp’s research on the seven evolutionary-based, neurobiological affective circuits which underlie human behavior and consciousness (Panksepp, 1998; Panksepp & Biven, 2012), and attachment theory as developed by John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) and Mary Main (1996, 1999).

Conference

English

Andrew Leeds
Dolores Mosquera

Leeds, A., & Mosquera, D. (2017, June). Acts, urges, and states in AIP: The role of action tendencies and action systems in effective, ineffective, and disrupted reprocessing. Presentation (Natalie Seijo, Chair) at the 18th EMDR Europe Association Conference, Barcelona, Spain