What is NARM?
Learn more about the Nueroaffective Relational Model (NARM)
“What is the primary biological imperative for humans? It is to be connected…”
— Stephen Porges
What is NARM therapy?
NARM is an innovative treatment approach for Developmental Trauma & PTSD.
It is focused heavily on bringing consent, curiosity and agency to the therapeutic space. In NARM, we begin each session by asking what you are most wanting for yourself - and explore gently, with curiosity, what might be getting in the way of having what you most desire.
Elements of a NARM session
Consent
Curiosity
Agency
A little more about the model:
NARM is a relatively new model but draws from a long history of psychological lineages, including somatic (body based) approaches, as well as more traditional psychoanalytic models. While many trauma therapy models (such as Somatic Experiencing or EMDR) are designed to address shock trauma (trauma that happens to the body), NARM is one of the only existing models specifically designed to address Complex PTSD or C-PTSD. It expands and deepens what we already know about how trauma affects us to include the complex distortions of the self that can occur when we grow up in dysfunctional environments in which our survival requires a suppression of our essential, authentic self. NARM explores how failures in our environment - a parent’s abusive behavior or lack of complete attunement - lead to these distortions of our most essential self. Using NARM, we work to explore the survival strategies that were needed in childhood to survive, and build capacity to recover our essential self that was lost.