Healing Developmental Trauma

Although it may seem that humans suffer from an endless number of emotional problems and challenges, authors Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre contend that most of these can be traced back to developmental trauma and to the compromised development of one or more of five core capacities associated with five biologically based core needs that our essential to our physical and emotional well-being: the needs for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality. Recognizing these needs as well as five Adaptive Survival Styles, set in motion when the core needs are not met early in life, Heller and LaPierre cut through the seeming complexity of life's problems. Explaining that an impaired capacity for connection to self and to others and the ensuing diminished aliveness are the hidden dimensions that underlie most psychological and many physiological problems, Heller and LaPierre present the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), a resource-oriented, psychodynamically informed approach that, while not ignoring a person's past, emphasizes working in the present moment. NARM uses somatic mindfulness to re-regulate the nervous system and to resolve identity distortions--such as low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment--caused by developmental and relational trauma. Heller and LaPierre demonstrate how this therapy helps clients establish connection to the parts of self that are organized, coherent and functional, integrating the role of connection on all levels of experience as it affects a person's physiology, psychology, and capacity for relationship. Ebook (ISBN: 978-1-58394-511-7; $14.95/$14.95 CAN) will be available. Same on sale date.

Heller and LaPierre introduce the Neuro Affective Relational Model (NARM), a method that integrates bottom-up and top-down approaches to regulate the nervous system and resolve distortions of identity such as low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment that are the outcome of developmental and relational trauma. While not ignoring a persons past, NARM emphasizes working in the present moment to focus on clients' strengths, resources, and resiliency in order to integrate the experience of connection that sustains our physiology, psychology, and capacity for relationship.