What’s the NeuroAffective Relational Model?

I believe the NeuroAffective Relational Model is one of the most powerful relational processes on the planet today for transforming unconscious personality patterns into clarity, vitality, and conscious individuality.  

To get started, here’s the definition provided by the NARM Institute: 

“[NARM] is a clinical model, a developmental model, and a model of human functioning. It is a clinical model in the sense that it offers a specific orientation to working with emotional problems and symptoms, that is applicable in many fields, developmental in the sense that it offers an understanding both for optimal human development and for where development gets arrested, and a functional model in its relevance to the complex here-and-now challenges that human beings face.

NARM integrates psychodynamic, somatic, and cognitive therapies with affective neuroscience and non-Western perspectives to support individuals in reconnecting with themselves—their bodies and emotions—and other people. Whether used in psychotherapy, coaching, or other helping professions, NARM offers a deeply respectful, resource-oriented approach that supports both clients and practitioners.”

Rather than continuing with an abstract overview of the NeuroAffective Model, I want to offer my own perspective on what makes it special. 

Regarding NARM’s historical influences, in my opinion, it is as if NARM had integrated the best aspects of all major psychological, somatic, and spiritual traditions of the last century, as well as ancestral wisdom, and synthesized them into a powerful, efficient and heartfelt approach.

Before diving in, I want to point out something absolutely essential.

The NeuroAffective Relational Model is a way of being and relating that is imparted by one practitioner to another through mentorship in community. 

I am grateful to all the teachers and practitioners – both inside and outside the NARM community – for the inner work they have done, which makes it possible for them to work with and support me.

As I begin to see myself more clearly, become more whole, and live in alignment with myself and my heart’s desires, I am able to pass that gift on to others when they work with me.

While NARM’s effectiveness has to do with an advanced application of the latest understandings of developmental psychology, human personality, emotion, attachment, and the social nature of nervous system regulation, I believe NARM is revolutionary for other reasons. 

From my perspective, the transformative potential of NARM lies in relationality.

And the power of NARM comes from recognizing and emphasizing agency. 

RELATIONALITY

First, a few general words about relationship in human life and the development of personality patterns. After that, I’ll talk about what relationality looks like when I work with clients. 

We are born in relationship to the human community. We are physically and emotionally linked to our mothers. We are always with other people and live in constant relation to them. It is only later that we learn to be alone, and even when we are alone, we understand this as the absence of other people. In other words, being in relationship is our natural state. Even when we think or write in silence, our language and thoughts depend on other people. 

The relational experiences we have in our family environments condition how we perceive the world and relate to other people. This is because our life as individuals depends on our ability to navigate the relational world. We adapt ourselves to our earliest environments. Our bodies and minds are imprinted with the memory of how others related to us: whether we were seen, attuned to, provided for, injured. In other words, relationships shape the unconscious patterns of our personality. 

Now, because patterns are formed in relationship, they can also be undone in relationship. And we can also grow in relationship – we can practice how we want to be going forward in relationship. 

So, my work with people in the spirit of NARM harnesses this power of relationship. 

When I work with someone, we always begin with an inquiry into what that person wishes for themselves. We explore this and make an agreement for the work on that basis. 

So, if we were working together, I would begin by asking you what you’re wishing for. We would inquire into this together and make an agreement about it. Your intention is not necessarily clear and explicit: we are attuning to a deeper current of truth within you, a capacity, a wish for how you’d like to be with yourself. We may only get a felt sense of it. 

By making an agreement about your intentions and why we are working together, we step immediately into a relationship. You are seeking inner change and I am agreeing to do my best to support you in that. 

This is simple, yet powerful. 

First of all, the authority about what you need and want remains with you. This creates an eye-to-eye relationship where the work that we are doing is not defined by what I believe you need to do, nor by any other ideas about what you need to do. You are invited to be yourself and when I assent to working with you, I am doing so exactly as myself. 

This addresses possible imbalances in the relationship and allows me to serve you. I’m not the expert in what you need and what’s going on with you. I may have expertise in growth and change and the contours of human development, which we will use together for your benefit. 

Also, there is an element of trust in this. We are acknowledging that there is already an inner movement in you towards what you are wishing for. This is built into the fact that you’re asking for support. I give up my authority to this deeper movement in you, while applying all my skills, knowledge and wisdom to support you. 

This is much different than creating an assessment from my side about what would be good for you. If I were to do so, I would be treating you as an object and not another human being to whom I am relating. 

You step into a relationship with me, carrying your half of the relationship. We are creating a relationship together, for you. I carry my half of the relationship, which is to do my best as a human being to support you. 

This conscious collaboration is quite different from falling into an unconscious pattern together. So we get a good start coming out of the gate.

When we work together, it’s just you and me in the present. We are not trying to achieve anything according to any spiritual or psychological frameworks. We are not giving up your truth to external frameworks, assumptions, habitual ways of doing things. 

Of course, in my personal life, I have my own views and opinions about things. But I am assenting to working with you and to honoring your intentions. I’m not working with you on the basis of being a learned authority about things; I am mobilizing my resources to honor your unfolding, as you wish it. I am passionate about advocating for the transformation you desire. If for some reason it’s clear that I can’t be of service, I don’t agree to work with you. 

From the beginning, the work is thus relational. It emphasizes the relationship you are creating for your own growth and transformation. 

AGENCY

Agency is ultimately a mysterious thing. It makes you, you and is at the heart of the mystery of freedom, creativity and becoming who you are. Agency is responsible for your unfoldment and presence in the world. Everybody is unique. 

Carl Jung spoke of the “transcendent function” as the force driving the individuation process. But we don’t need fancy psychological terminology.

In simple terms, there is something inside you leading you to seek change in relation to something unconscious about yourself. A new way of being emerges from the tension between what is conscious and what is unconscious. 

Agency is the movement within you toward what you’re wishing for yourself. Without it, you wouldn’t get anywhere. Agency is a fact, it’s real.

When we relate to each other from agency, we are honoring our deepest potential as self-determining beings. We relate on the basis of freedom, so we are meeting each other in the mystery of who we are. We are not strategizing or manipulating each other. 

Let me give you an example of the depth and mystery of agency.

Laurence Heller, the founder of NARM, gave the following example in one of his advanced training sessions. The issue we were working with had to do with very early life experiences.

Someone mentioned rocking a baby in order to pacify it. Dr. Heller pointed out that when we rock a baby, something inside the baby responds to the rocking. 

We are not doing something to the baby. Rather, we are relating to the baby and the baby is responding. Something inside the baby responds. That response comes from agency. 

This may seem abstract. It is an attempt to capture the difference between doing something to an object and relating to another human being.

When you rock the baby, the baby responds by becoming peaceful. It is relating to your rocking, your relationship. It is in relationship with you.

This example is poignant for me. Each of us demonstrates the mystery of individuality. Children conjure this mystery for us, as they grow up. 

Now, leaving the great mysteries and philosophical puzzles about agency aside – when we go through difficult experiences in childhood, we can become fragmented, we get disorganized, and agency gets confused, dimmed, or obscured. 

But agency is always active somehow. 

For example, agency is what determines what catches your attention and what occupies you. It has to do with the reason why you’re taking time to read this article. 

You may not be able to explain it in words or make total sense out of it, but you are being drawn toward very specific things and not others. That means there is something inside you reaching out for growth.

When we catch this in the present moment, it creates a subtle and powerful momentum for inner change.

In fact, merely noticing your agency in the present moment solidifies and strengthens it.  

Sometimes, you may come to inner work with a strong sense of agency. There is clarity, an intuitive flow. Other times, we will be tracing the faintest clues and outlines of agency, staying open with curiosity and presence together in the face of the Unknown. Gradually, a picture emerges and things begin to make sense after feeling like we’ve been lost for a while. 

Agency is what is alive in you, and it is your self-direction. When we bring curiosity and presence to this, the field becomes activated for your growth. The things that need to emerge, emerge.

However, one more word about my role in this.

While we trust your agency, and we work with what spontaneously emerges in our relationship, I often remain directive. I use my insight, skills and agency to help amplify and explore what is useful and to leave behind what is not useful. The self is a vast territory full of false positives and positive falsehoods and I’ve traversed relatively speaking a great portion of it. From another perspective, I’ve only traversed the tiniest little insignificant portion of it.   

In fact, although I may be directive, you are really the one directing the session. Think about it. Our relationship only comes into existence when you get in touch to do work; and I agree to work in service of your intentions. Thus, I’m a proxy for your agency, and I’m able to be of service when I honor your intentions. I’m able to do this due the inner work I’ve done in order to clarify my own agency. 

When we emphasize agency in inner work, we are saying that somehow we are getting in our own ways or causing our own difficulties. That’s because agency means that we are responsible for our inner states and capacities. So, we begin researching and inquiring into what’s getting in the way of what we want, how we are getting in the way. 

However, emphasizing agency is never about blaming people for what happened to them and the patterns they developed for coping with it. 

The assumption that we are somehow responsible for our inner difficulties is really inspiring and sane. In fact, it is the only assumption that makes sense for doing inner work. It believes and trusts that we are responsible for how we relate to ourselves, for our inner capacities, and states of mind. Otherwise, we couldn’t get anywhere, there would be no point to doing inner work. 

Agency also shines a light into the Unknown. By definition, we must enter the Unknown when we want to change.

Inner change means something new. Something new is by definition something unfamiliar.

What will lead our process through the unknown territories, how will we know what to focus on? 

The key is agency. We need agency to guide us.

We come to inner work with more or less clarity about what we’re wishing for. Very often, we’re not entirely sure what it’s about and it is difficult to explain or put into words. Fairly often, we believe we’re doing inner work for a particular issue, but it turns out that there was something deeper behind it. Our own cognitive self-understanding is quite often confused and misleading, although there is always an intuition guiding us forward. 

One thing we do know is that we are being drawn towards something. When we begin inquiring into that with the power of attunement and curiosity, your agency begins to coalesce and come into focus. This activates an organizing force for your inner world, where all the threads begin to untangle, and the healthy, vital part of yourself is enlisted in the change process. Our attention is naturally drawn to the right things.

We are strengthening your agency, which is an abstract way of saying that we are helping you be what you intend to be. This is your potential, and it is yours.