Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is based on the Adaptive Information Processing model (Shapiro, 1995, 2001, 2006).  Information gets stored in the brain in state specific form, and bilateral stimulation can be utilized to remove the barriers that prevent the brain from healing itself. In this way, knowledge, beliefs, emotions, and sensations that are available and helpful now can be utilized to heal those parts of self that still hold responses that were adaptive during a past experience, but are no longer helpful in the present.