Healing Developmental Trauma

This book is aimed at those working to heal developmental trauma and seeking new tools for self-awareness and growth. It focuses on conflicts related to the ability to connect. It explains that an impaired ability to connect with oneself and others, along with the resulting diminished vitality, are the hidden dimensions underlying most psychological and many physiological problems. Therapists Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre introduce the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), a unified approach to developmental, attachment, and shock trauma that emphasizes work in the present moment without ignoring a person's past. NARM is a somatically based psychotherapy that helps bring awareness to the parts of the self that are disorganized and dysfunctional, without making the regressive, dysfunctional elements the main focus of therapy. It emphasizes a person's strengths, abilities, resources, and resilience and is a powerful tool for working with the regulation of the nervous system and identity distortions such as low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment.