Page 35 - NARM Model for Working with Affect
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NARM Affect Core Principle: Shame, Guilt & Self-Hatred
§One’s relationship to anger and healthy aggression is directly impacted by shame, guilt and self-hatred
§Initially, the psychobiological response to environmental failure is to protest, to ramp up aggression (sympathetically-dominant response) in order to get one’s needs met
• But this energy of aggression feels threatening for a child to contain internally and because it can be and is experienced as dangerous, the child splits it off in various ways, including both acting-in and acting-out strategies
oUsing parasympathetic mechanisms helps the child to manage the threatening affects
§Reintegrating protest/anger is one important element in helping clients change their relationship to self
§The implicit message in protest and anger: “I don’t deserve to be treated this way”
NARM Model for Working with Affect Laurence Heller, PhD & Brad J Kammer, LMFT, LPCC 40
