Course Description

The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is an advanced clinical training for therapists working with complex developmental trauma. NARM is a powerful approach to addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and their long-term consequences as revealed in the ACEs Study.

Developed by Laurence Heller PhD over the course of his 45-year clinical career, it was first introduced in his book “Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image and the Capacity for Relationship”.

NARM addresses relational and attachment trauma by working with early, unconscious patterns of disconnection that deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior and relationships. Integrating a psychodynamic, humanistic and body-centered approach, NARM offers a comprehensive theoretical and clinical model for integrating top-down psychotherapy and bottom-up somatic approaches within a relational context.

Learning how to work simultaneously with these diverse elements represents a radical shift that has profound clinical implications for healing developmental trauma and supporting personal and relational growth.

NARM draws on developmentally oriented psychodynamic models such as attachment and object relations theory, Gestalt and somatic and character structure approaches, in addressing the link between psychological issues and the body. Working in the present moment, and within a context of interpersonal neurobiology, NARM offers a new approach that is resource-oriented, non-regressive, non-cathartic, and ultimately non-pathologizing.

Grounded in what NARM calls somatic mindfulness, NARM is influenced by a non- western orientation to the nature of the identity.

 NARM assumes that while biography matters, it is not what happened in the past that causes the symptoms people experience as adults. It is the persistence of survival strategies that were once appropriate that distort the present experience and produce symptoms. These survival strategies have lost their usefulness and lead to a constant disconnection from our authentic self and from others.

For example, dissociation and isolation are the primary coping mechanisms for dealing with early trauma. Dissociation and isolation have literally saved people’s lives, but when these mechanisms continue into adulthood, they cause persistent symptoms.

It is the distortion of identity that develops in response to early trauma that causes ongoing suffering.

For example: When children grow up with unloving parents, they are not able to realize that this is their parents’ failure. Children always experience the failures of the environment as their own failures and develop the feeling that they themselves are not lovable. A core element of the NARM model is working with the unconscious need of the child, and later the adult, to protect the attachment and love relationship. By compartmentalizing developmental needs and emotions, the image of the caregiver is protected at the expense of one’s own positive sense of self. This has profound implications on a psychobiological level.

Course Objectives

The NARM clinical model provides precise and effective techniques for exploring simultaneously the interplay between identity distortion and the capacity for connection, containment, regulation and aliveness. You`ll learn:

• How to address the complex interplay between nervous system dysregulation and identity distortions, such as toxic shame and guilt, low self-esteem, chronic self-judgment, and other psychobiological symptoms.
• How to work moment-by-moment with early adaptive survival styles that, while once lifesaving, distort clients’ current life experience.
• When to work ‘bottom-up’, when to work ‘top-down’, and how to work with both simultaneously to meet the special challenges of developmental trauma.
• How to support clients with a mindful and progressive process of disidentification from identity distortions.
• A new, coherent theory for working with affect and emotions, which aims to support their psychobiological completion.
• To use the Four Pillars and how to focus on the interpersonal, therapeutic relationship, serving as an agent of change.
• The NARM Relational Model providing an understanding in form of an organized 6-step process for working with countertransference, empathy, helplessness and supporting therapeutic engagement.
• How to work with subtle shifts in the nervous system disrupting the predictive tendency of the brain.

Course Structure

The NARM Therapist Training consists of 120 CEU hours divided into 4 live modules. The 4 live modules will be held for a total of 20 days over the period of the training. The live modules are typically spaced 4 – 6 months apart to allow time for continued study, practice and peer meetings in support of greater integration of the NARM clinical approach. Supplementary learning opportunities include study and practice groups, individual and group consultation, individual NARM sessions and other learning intensives.

Teaching Methods

All modules include a combination of 2 complimentary instruction approaches:

• Didactic and theoretical learning: including lecture, question and answer periods, class-wide discussion, case consultation, and deconstruction of live-demonstrations and videos.
• Experiential learning: including self-inquiry exercises, small group activities, role-plays, active coaching and guided skill practice.

Topic Overview

NARM’s unique organic approach to developmental trauma includes that the order of content may be subject to change.

Module 1 includes:

• NARM Organizing Principles
• NARM Theoretical Orientation
• Differentiating Interventions for working with Shock and Developmental Trauma
• Working with Top-Down and Bottom-Up Integrative Approach
• Tracking Connection & Disconnection
• Developmental Process: Attachment & Separation-Individuation
• Reframing Attachment and Attachment Loss
• Distortions of Life Force Model
• Distress and Healing Cycles
• Overview of 5 Adaptive Survival Styles
• Connection Survival Style
• Attunement Survival Style
• Clinical Model: NARM 4 Pillars
• NARM Relational Model

Module 2 includes:

• Working Hypothesis
• Identifying Core Dilemma: Core Themes vs Survival Strategies (Behaviors, Symptoms, etc.)
• Dual Awareness: Working in Present Time with Developemental Themes
• NARM Languaging
• NARM and the Body
• Trust Survival Style
• Autonomy Survival Style

Module 3 includes:

• NARM-Model for Working with Affect
• Primary vs Default Emotions
• Emotional Completion
• The Psychobiological Process of Shame (“Shame as a Verb”, “Shame as a Process not a State”)
• Working with Anger/Aggression & Sadness/Grief
• Working with Shame, Guilt & Self-Hatred
• Countertransference Dynamics in NARM
• Unmanaged Empathy and Therapist Efforting
• Narcissism and Objectification of Self
• Narcissistic vs Sadistic Abuse
• Love-Sexuality Survival Style
• NARM Personality Spectrum

Module 4 includes:

• Deepening Study into the Connection Survival Style Issues, Symptoms and Related Disorders

• The Interplay of the Survival Styles: Primary and Secondary Patterns
• Revisiting the Dynamics of Attachment, Separation-Individuation, Attachment Loss and the Core Dilemma

• Relationships, Couples, Intimacy and Sexuality
• Working with Identity
• Transgenerational Trauma
• Disidentification Process
• Freedom from Identity
• Post-Traumatic Growth
• Addressing Identity from both a Psychological, Non-Western and Spiritual Perspective
• Integrating NARM Effectively into Our Clinical Practice

Target Group and Prerequisites for Participation

Professional background of participants: completion of a psychotherapy or somatic psychotherapy education and at least 2 years of clinical experience as a practitioner working with patients/clients on a regular basis.

Certification

A certificate of completion is issued upon completion of all requirements for the NARM Therapist Training (prerequisite: full attendance plus 10 supervisions, 1 recorded session with a client and 10 individual sessions with NARM accredited therapists).

Accreditation

Language

Teachings are in English. Practicing-groups, individual sessions and supervisions can also be in Dutch.

Dates & Times

Module 1 

November 18 – 22, 2026

Module 2 

April 14 – 18, 2027

Module 3 

September 8 – 12, 2027

Module 4 

February 16 – 20, 2028

Day 1-4: 10:00 – 13:00 and 15:00 – 18:00
Day 5: 10:00 – 13:00 and 14:30 – 17:00

Costs

4350,-€

Day arrangment for planar room, lunch, coffee/tea: 235,- €  per module

Dining & overnight stay incl. day arrangement: 550,- € 

*Costs are based on former years and can change

Location

Fletcher Erica Berg en Dal, Molenbosweg 17 6571 BA Berg en Dal

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