NARM stands for the NeuroAffective Relational Model. It was developed by Dr. Laurence Heller as a present-focused, body-aware approach for adults living with the long shadow of childhood trauma — what is often called complex trauma, developmental trauma, or C-PTSD.
The premise NARM is built on
We are born wired for connection. When the people we depend on as children can't fully meet our needs — for safety, attunement, autonomy, love, or recognition — we don't stop needing them. We adapt. We learn to make ourselves smaller, more agreeable, more invisible, more responsible, more pleasing. These adaptations keep the connection alive when we are too small to leave.
The cost is that we lose contact with parts of ourselves. The adaptations outlive the situations that created them and start running our adult lives — as self-sabotage, chronic shame, difficulty saying no, anxious or avoidant relationships, or a persistent sense that something is wrong with us.
NARM works with these adaptations directly.
What a NARM session actually looks like
A session is mostly a slow, curious conversation. I'm tracking three things at once:
- What you're saying — the story you're bringing today.
- What's happening in your body as you say it — breath, tension, the moment your eyes drop, the place your voice changes.
- What's happening between us — the relational field, because survival patterns show up most clearly in real-time contact.
Where most talk therapy stays in the story, NARM keeps gently bringing you back to right now. "What do you notice in your body as you tell me that?" "What happens if we just stay with this for a moment?" The work isn't analysing the past — it's interrupting the pattern as it's running in the present, so your nervous system can experience that a different outcome is possible.
The five core needs NARM works with
NARM organises developmental wounds around five core biological needs we all share:
- Connection — Am I welcome in the world and in my own body?
- Attunement — Are my needs and feelings recognised?
- Trust — Can I depend on others without losing myself?
- Autonomy — Can I say what I think and feel without consequence?
- Love and sexuality — Can I open my heart and stay in my body?
When one or more of these were chronically disrupted, we developed survival strategies organised around that wound. Working with the right one matters — pushing on autonomy in someone whose core wound is connection just creates more shame.
Why it works for self-sabotage and toxic relationships
What looks like self-sabotage is almost never self-sabotage. It's an old survival strategy doing exactly what it was designed to do — keep you safe in a situation that no longer exists. The procrastination, the bad partner choices, the inability to set a boundary, the explosion of anger followed by collapse — these are intelligent patterns that protected a child.
NARM doesn't try to talk you out of them. It helps you meet them with enough curiosity that you can start to feel, in your body, that you don't need them anymore. That's when change actually sticks.
Is NARM right for you?
If you've done years of talk therapy and still feel like you understand your patterns but can't shift them, NARM is often the missing piece. If you tend to intellectualise, NARM will challenge you to slow down. If you're in acute crisis or have very limited window of tolerance, we may start with stabilisation work first and bring in NARM gradually.
The best way to find out is to book a Discovery Call — 55 minutes to talk through what you're working with and decide together whether we're the right fit.