The Reservoir of Adaptive Resources (RoAR): Integrating Adaptive Information Processing, the Window of Tolerance, and Conservation of Resources Toward a General Framework of Therapeutic Change

This paper integrates Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), the Window of Tolerance (WoT), and Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources (COR) theory into a unified framework for understanding trauma and therapeutic change. We propose that COR, which we conceptualize clinically as a Reservoir of Adaptive Resources (RoAR), predicts and explains whether experiences fall within or outside the WoT, and is therefore a decisive factor determining whether they are processed adaptively or maladaptively. Clinically, this framework reframes resourcing as a core mechanism of change across all phases of treatment, rather than as preparatory work alone, one that operates within and beyond Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). The framework further proposes that resource sufficiency, relational containment, and safe access to maladaptive material may operate as shared contributing mechanisms of change across therapeutic modalities.