Healing Dissociation and Complex Trauma with the Neuroaffective Relational Model (NARM™)

This session is available for 1.50 APA and ASWB credits.

Abstract

This workshop will present an overview of the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM™) in addressing attachment, relational, and developmental trauma and its role in dissociated parts of self. Understanding and being able to work with developmental dynamics, including the complexities of adverse childhood experiences, is critical for helping our clients in their treatment and healing process. We will look at how clients’ life experiences present themselves in the context of a complex, psychobiologically-driven relational framework that is often largely unconscious. This framework, laid down by our early attachment experiences, shapes our development, who we are in the world (our self), and how we relate to others. In short, dissociated parts of ourselves become survival strategies that take us away from our authentic self. When clients are having difficulty shifting out of patterns of dysregulation, including dissociation, these implicit dynamics which are largely held in place by shame, are at play and must be addressed. The NARM approach weaves together a somatic or body-based (bottom-up) process while simultaneously working with clients’ identity and relational dynamics (top-down) to support greater capacity to manage varying levels of arousal without the need to dissociate.