A path into more connection and vitality.
A NARM group online over eight Fridays – for you who want to explore how what you carry with you shapes the way you meet yourself and others today. Drawing on NARM (NeuroAffective Relational Model) (opens another website).
Who it's for
How does what happened in childhood shape your here-and-now experience as an adult?
Over eight sessions we explore together how what we went through early in life – or rather the adaptations we were forced to make in response to what happened – still shapes our self-image, our behaviour, our relationships and our health as adults. This trauma-informed way of understanding ourselves has the potential, in time, to help you towards more connection with yourself and others, self-leadership, love and acceptance.
With curiosity and an open mind you will find your own gold to pan for, even if you don't identify as having had a particularly difficult upbringing. Perhaps you will open the door a little to the really interesting question: who are you, really, beyond the early-rooted ideas of who you are or ought to be?
The group is an exploration, not therapy or treatment. If you're in the middle of something acute right now, another form of support may be right first – do get in touch and we'll think it through together.
The coping strategies that initially helped us survive as children over the years become rigid beliefs about who we are and what the world is like. Our beliefs about ourselves and the world, together with the physiological patterns associated with these beliefs, crystallize into a familiar sense of who we are. This is what we come to view as our identity. — Laurence Heller
Our early years and how they shape us
What happens during childhood shapes our identity and our strategies for living and surviving. Neglect, emotional distance or anything else that “threatens our existence” can lead us to push away parts of ourselves and develop survival strategies in order to cope with the environment we grew up in.
Much of this is automatic, and the earlier it happens, the more it is tied to and lives in the unconscious, and in our bodies as sensations – a nervous system programmed to look for what is threatening rather than what is safe.
When we talk about strategies and shame-based identities, it is important to remember that we are first and foremost people who have strategies and identities, rather than fully identifying as them.
Read the full text
Five core needs
NARM identifies five basic core needs that are essential to our development and wellbeing. These needs have to be met during specific developmental phases for us to develop a healthy sense of self and healthy relationships. When the need is met, it gives us more capacity for:
- Connection (in utero–6 months) – being in contact with body and feelings, and finding it easy to connect with others.
- Attunement (0–1.5 years) – knowing our needs and feelings, and easily giving and receiving nourishing connection.
- Trust (1.5–4 years) – relying on and letting ourselves depend on others, above all in close relationships.
- Autonomy (1.5–4 years) – setting appropriate boundaries, saying no and expressing our needs and wishes without guilt or fear.
- Love/Sexuality (3–6 years and puberty) – living with an open heart and integrating a loving relationship with vital sexuality.
In the more pronounced cases, where neglect and/or trauma has occurred repeatedly over a long time, usually in the home, we speak of C-PTSD (complex trauma) or developmental trauma. The ACE study shows how what we go through as children can affect our physical and mental health later in life.
Our stance
Curious, together
We start from a simple idea: what we do today often began as a wise way of coping with what was around us, then and there.
Patterns, not flaws
We meet what shows up as adaptations, not as shortcomings. Nothing in you needs fixing.
Here and now
We'd rather stay with what is happening in you right now than analyse the past.
Together
Being listened to, and listening, is an important part of the exploration. Sharing happens in small groups and in the whole group – always voluntary.
The spontaneous movement in all of us is toward connection and health. No matter how withdrawn and isolating we have become, or how serious the trauma we have experienced, on the deepest level, just as a plant spontaneously moves towards the sun, there is in each of us an impulse moving toward connection. — Laurence Heller
The programme
Eight Fridays online, three movements
We land, explore and integrate. Each session follows the same rhythm: we land together, receive a short input, reflect on our own and share – in small groups and in the whole group.
Introduction to the course and the exploration – what do I want for myself?
We get to know each other and set the frame. Each person names what they wish for from these weeks – a thread we return to.
Between what happens and what I do with it
There is what happens, and what we do to ourselves in response. In that gap lies our choice.
Being present – body, emotions, connection
What it's like to be in the body, to feel and to let yourself be seen – and what makes us withdraw.
Knowing what I need
Sensing your own needs, asking for what you need and receiving – not only giving.
Leaning on others
Trust, control and what happens in us when we let others matter.
Wanting, and saying no
Desire, boundaries and anger as pure force – without guilt.
Being loved as I am
An open heart, and being allowed to be close without having to perform.
What do I take with me?
We gather what we've discovered and make room for what often follows – expansion is readily followed by contraction. That is not a failure.
In brief
Framework
- Format
- Closed group, max 12 participants, eight sessions
- Time
- Fridays 3.00–4.30 pm
- Place
- Zoom
- Price
- SEK 3,900 incl. VAT (SEK 3,120 excl. VAT when invoiced to a company)
- Start
- Next round to be announced
- Led by
- Patrik, assisted by Gabriella
Before each round we host an open information meeting online, where you can meet us and hear more about the format before you decide.
Facilitators
Who facilitates the group – NARM therapist and psychologist
Patrik Sjöberg Grusell
Leads the group. Certified NARM therapist and co-founder of Wevolve. Came to NARM as a client before becoming a therapist, and leads the couples weekend together with Gabriella.
Gabriella Sjöberg Grusell
Assists in the group. Licensed psychologist and founder of Wevolve. Trained NARM practitioner, with long experience of holding groups – in organisations, on retreats and in therapy.
Interest
Curious?
Register your interest and we'll be in touch when the next round and the information meeting are booked. You're not committing to anything.
Read how we handle your data in our privacy policy.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.— Carl Rogers