NARM: A Healing Approach to Understanding Why We Do What We Do

Any of this sound familiar?

You grew up with caregivers that didn’t (or couldn’t… or wouldn’t…) acknowledge your needs and feelings.

Maybe they were struggling too; overwhelmed with their own disappointments and misgivings. Lost in responsibilities and harsh realities. Maybe they never learned to experience and process their own emotions, so were incapable of helping you with yours. Maybe they were just a straight-up asshole…

Whatever the reason, you adapted. Learned not to ask for much. Made yourself small. Kept yourself ‘good’. 

Fast forward 20 years, and you genuinely don't know what you want, or even who you are. Strip back the people pleasing, and the overthinking, the never good enough-ness of it all, and the desperate need to stay one step ahead in order to feel safe - and what are you left with? It’s a sobering, heartbreaking question to ask, and when stuck in this cycle of overwhelm, anxiety, and being relentlessly hard on yourself, an even more difficult one to answer. 

The NeuroAffective Relational Model (or NARM) helps you to explore that answer, and actually reshape your perspective from “Why can’t I do life like everyone else?” to “What happened in my life that’s led me to rely on these not-so-healthy patterns of behavior?”. It helps you to see that you’re not weak for being unable to set boundaries; nor are you necessarily indecisive by nature; these are examples of learned behaviors that you used as survival strategies when you were a kid, at a time when expressing your needs felt unsafe. 

It’s actually remarkable what we humans can do to protect ourselves. That, what looks like a character flaw today, is actually evidence of what you did to survive back then. NARM helps you to see that more clearly - and without self-judgment. It draws on neuroscience, attachment theory, somatic psychology, and relational therapy. But you don't need to know any of that for it to work…

What Makes NARM Different?

1. It focuses on the present - without dismissing the past

In a NARM session, you don't comb through your whole history or spend session after session retelling painful memories. The past matters, and we absolutely explore it, but the focus stays on how the past is alive in your present: in your reactions, your body, your relationships, and the way you talk to yourself. Rather than excavating the past, we work with it in the here and now.

For example, your boss sends a short, neutral email, and you suddenly feel small and panicky and can't sleep. Or you're dating someone you really like, and the moment things feel close, you pull away or find reasons to end it. The email isn't the real problem. The pull to disappear when closeness feels too good isn't you being "avoidant." These are echoes of old survival strategies running the show in your current life.

2. It’s gentle, collaborative - and you set the pace

Many people arrive at therapy with urgency: let me just get it all out and move on. Or: teach me how to fix myself. Or: I want something intense that breaks down my defenses. The pull toward a quick fix makes complete sense. We want to feel better. Now.

But you can't heal complex trauma by pushing through. You heal by building capacity: the ability to be with what's actually happening without shutting down, going numb, or letting your emotions take the wheel.

Some therapies work on the premise that if you just feel it hard enough, it will release; that catharsis is the goal. In practice, retelling the same story over and over can actually reinforce trauma rather than heal it. And confronting something before you're ready rarely leads anywhere helpful. In NARM, you are always in control of the pace. What you're ready to explore, and when, is yours to determine.

That said, this isn't about staying comfortable. As someone famously said, growth and comfort do not coexist. The difference is that a NARM therapist treats the survival strategies you've developed with respect; as intelligent responses that made sense at the time, rather than as wounds to be licked or obstacles to be dismantled. We're not trying to break anything down. Instead, we’re gently asking whether what kept you safe for so long is still serving you, or whether it’s now getting in the way of what you actually want.

Think about it this way: you've been living with these patterns for 20, 30, 40, maybe 70 years. They're not going anywhere overnight, and they shouldn't have to. Rushing doesn't work. Forcing doesn't work. What works is showing up, slowly, with curiosity rather than pressure.

This is collaborative work: you bring your experience, your NARM therapist brings training and steady presence, and together you find what's actually workable for you. There are no protocols to follow, no predetermined path. You wade in at your own pace, and can wade out as often as you need to, with someone steady and caring beside you.

3. It’s a more holistic approach, considering mind and body

NARM is body-based, but probably not in the way you're imagining. There's no touch, no being asked to "drop into your body" on command, and no regulation exercises you need to do to heal. Instead, we stay curious about what your system is doing, at your pace and with your consent.

What makes NARM distinctive is that, instead of treating physical and mental challenges separately, it addresses everything simultaneously; thoughts and body, meaning and sensation, identity and lived experience are all addressed in what we call working ‘top-down and bottom-up’.

Top-down (the mind): We explore your thoughts, beliefs, and the stories you've had to tell yourself about who you are. "I'm too much." "I don't matter." "I have to be perfect to be loved." These can feel so familiar that they seem like personality traits. You assume that’s just the way you are. But it’s not. They're often conclusions you came to as a child, trying to make sense of an environment that didn't make sense. A child who is repeatedly overlooked doesn't think, “My caregiver is struggling. That’s why they don't see me”. They think “I must not matter very much.” That belief doesn't stay in childhood. It travels with you, coloring everything that comes after, often long after the original environment is gone.

In sessions, we get curious about these beliefs together.  The goal isn’t to argue you out of them, but to look at them more clearly. For example, “This strategy once kept you safe. But is it still true? Does it truly describe who you are, or does it describe what you were trying to survive?”

Bottom-up (the body): We also pay attention to what's happening in your body in real time, such as tension, tightening, numbness, shallow breathing, a racing mind, or that foggy feeling. You can understand something perfectly in your head and still find your body reacting as if the old dynamic is present right now. Trauma is stored in the nervous system, not just in memory. You can't think your way out of it. 

4. It’s done in relationship

Neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett, writes: "The best thing for your nervous system is another human. The worst thing for your nervous system is also another human. This situation leads us to a fundamental dilemma of the human condition."

Nowhere is that dilemma more alive than in complex trauma. The threat was relational: a caregiver, a parent, someone you completely depended on. So, connection itself came to feel like danger. Closeness can feel like the setup for something bad, even when nothing bad is actually happening. Part of healing, then, is learning that, in small doses, connection can be safe again. The therapy relationship itself becomes a place to safely experience that in real time. To show what you actually feel. To be frustrated or sad, or to get in touch with how much you want to be seen and known. Over time, in a relationship that feels consistently safe, something in the system begins to relax.

And the results?

What tends to emerge over time is more choice, more connection to yourself and others, and a kind of wholeness. But wholeness does not mean perfection. 

Carl Rogers, one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, described the goal of therapy not as eliminating the difficult parts of ourselves, but as integrating them, becoming able to acknowledge, and sometimes even make peace with, all of who we are. Your whole messy, complicated self. The parts you're proud of and the parts you've been running from. Healing isn't about getting rid of anything. It's about having room for all of it.

And having room for all of it doesn't mean being swamped by your feelings, either… 

What matters more than intensity is capacity: the ability to stay present with what you feel without collapsing into it or running from it. Can you sit with sadness without it swallowing you whole? Anger without letting it take the wheel? Fear without going numb? That capacity grows slowly, and as it does, emotions stop needing to be acted out or pushed down. They can simply be felt. And through being felt, integrated.

Sometimes the first shifts feel small but land with enormous weight. People come back and say: I noticed the pattern, and I paused. I stayed in the conversation without disappearing. I stopped explaining and just said what was true. And this is where healing truly begins. 

As a certified NARM Master therapist, I’m here to tell you that your past experiences are valid, and worthy of attention, consideration, and healing. If you’d like to learn more about NARM, you can drop me a message here - or if you feel ready to get started with a session, click here.