THE NARM® THERAPIST TRAINING COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The NARM Therapist Training is an advanced clinical training in the NeuroAffective Relational Model® for licensed mental health professionals who work with the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and complex trauma (C-PTSD). NARM addresses attachment, developmental, relational, cultural and intergenerational trauma by working with the psychobiological patterns of disconnection that deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior and relationships. Integrating a psychodynamic and body centered approach, NARM offers a comprehensive theoretical and clinical model for working with complex trauma.

NARM draws upon multiple frameworks including psychodynamic modalities such as attachment and object relations theory, body-mind approaches, mindfulness-based models, and interpersonal therapies, in addressing the link between psychological issues, and the body. Working in the present moment, within a context of interpersonal neurobiology, NARM offers a powerful approach for working relationally that is a resource-oriented, non-regressive, non-cathartic, and ultimately non-pathologizing. Grounded in mindfulness and contemplative spiritual practices, NARM supports a non-western orientation to the nature of personality. Learning how to work simultaneously with these diverse elements is a radical shift that has profound clinical implications for healing complex trauma and supporting personal and relational growth.

In the NARM Therapist Training you will learn:

• The different skills needed to work with developmental versus shock trauma; when and why shock trauma interventions may be contraindicated in working with developmental trauma.
• How to address the complex interplay between nervous system dysregulation and identity distortions, such as toxic shame and guilt, low self-esteem, chronic self-judgment, and other psychobiological symptoms.
• How to work moment-by-moment with early adaptive survival styles that, while once life-saving, distort clients’ current life experience.
• When to work ‘bottom-up’, when to work ‘top-down’, and how to work with both simultaneously to meet the special challenges of developmental trauma.
• How to support clients with a mindful and progressive process of disidentification from identity distortions.
• A new, coherent theory for working with affect and emotions, which aims to support their psychobiological completion.

The NARM Therapist Training consists of 120 contact hours and is offered in four 5-day live modules (format may vary depending on training location). The live modules will be held for a total of 20 days over the period of the training. The weekend training modules are typically spaced 3-4 months apart, with a 1-day integration day between Modules 1 and 2, 2 and 3, and 3 and 4, which allows ample time for continued study, practice, peer meetings, and training webinars in support of greater integration of the NARM clinical approach.

Supplemental learning opportunities include: individual and group case consultation, large and small group active coaching, experiential consults, demonstration groups, study and practice groups, and other learning intensives.

All modules include a combination of 2 complementary instruction approaches:

• Didactic and theoretical learning: including lecture, question and answer periods, class-wide discussion, case consultation, and deconstruction of live NARM demonstration sessions and demonstration videos.
  • Please note that this training presents highly advanced psychological learning that involves complex, often evocative and transformative material on trauma.
• Experiential learning: including self-inquiry exercises, small group activities, role-plays, guided skill practice and active coaching on NARM clinical skills and full clinical sessions.
  • Please note that this training presents an opportunity for clinical development based on direct personal experience that involves complex, often evocative and transformative material on trauma.

We appreciate that so many mental health professionals work from a spirit of social justice and advocacy.  At the Complex Trauma Training Center, we are grounded in a strong commitment to addressing healing complex trauma as a vehicle for both personal and social transformation.  This also includes a strong commitment to promoting accessibility by creating a learning environment that supports diversity, fosters inclusion, and holds the intention to support connection and learning from each other.

We also want to be transparent with the intention for this Level 2 NARM Therapist Training so all prospective training participants know what this training will provide and what it will not provide.  The Level 2 NARM Therapist Training is an advanced psychotherapeutic training and will provide a comprehensive clinical training on the NeuroAffective Relational Model.  This Level 2 training is not focused on social or political activism and will not provide specific training in addressing the systemic failures that perpetuate complex trauma.  While we do acknowledge and discuss the origins of complex trauma emerging out of social systems and the legacy of unresolved cultural and intergenerational trauma, if your focus is in these areas, or you are wanting a trauma-informed training that will provide deeper training in these areas, we would encourage you to explore other trainings.

We recognize that every training participant has different needs around their learning process and goals.  We understand that if the NARM Therapist Training does not deliver on what you are expecting that this could impact your learning process.  So we want you to have a clear understanding of the boundaries of this Level 2 NARM Therapist Training.  This promotes clarity for us all.

While the Level 2 NARM Therapist Training itself will not specifically focus on addressing these important areas of changing systems that maintain systemic oppression and inequalities, we do very much hope that NARM Therapists will work in the many systems they are associated with and can use NARM to impact these systems for the better.  We support these efforts outside the Level 2 NARM Therapist Training and will continue to do what we can to prepare therapists in their work with individuals, families and communities in need.

Before registering for this training, please be aware that your full attendance is a requirement during this training, unless we are informed of an absence ahead of time or in the event of an unforeseen emergency. Absence and/or lack of participation in this training will not only impact your own learning process, it will also impact the experience of other participants and the group learning process. So your attendance and participation is critical to the success of this training for everyone involved.

Prior to the start of the training, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of any planned absences you may need to take throughout Modules 1 – 4. This will include full days away, arriving late, leaving early, or missing any part of any session. If you have any questions about this attendance policy prior to submitting your application for this training, please feel free to email us at admin@complextraumatrainingcenter.com.