Professional Training in the NeuroAffective Relational Model® (NARM®)
Welcome to the
NARM Training Institute
The NARM Training Institute offers professional training for those working with developmental and complex trauma. Our mission—to humanize and depathologize the mental health field and other helping professions—is at the heart of our trainings.
What is NARM?
The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is an approach to working with the effects of complex and developmental trauma. Developed by Dr. Laurence Heller, NARM focuses less on revisiting past traumatic events and more on the survival patterns people developed in response—patterns that often involved disconnecting in order to stay safe.
At its core, NARM recognizes that connection is both our deepest longing and our greatest fear. NARM supports clients in bringing curiosity to the ways they’ve learned to disconnect—from their bodies, emotions, relationships, and the world around them—opening the space for deeper reconnection to self and others.
Ultimately, NARM is about building the capacity for reconnection, grounded in the understanding that humans are innately driven toward connection, aliveness, and wholeness—a drive that fuels the healing process.
Would you like to stay connected with us?
Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Receive the latest NARM Training Institute news, training updates, webinar clips, training clips, and more!
Our Training Programs
NARM Inner Circle Membership
Open to Everyone
Ongoing learning for anyone interested in the nature of complex trauma and its healing. Includes exclusive demos, webinars, and insights from Dr. Laurence Heller and advanced NARM practitioners.
NARM-Informed
Professional Training
Open to All Helping Professionals
A practical introduction to the NARM approach for working with complex and developmental trauma. Explore foundational NARM concepts you can apply in your work, through instructor-led lectures and experiential learning tools.
NARM Post-Masters Immersion Weekends
Open to Grads of NARM Masters Trainings
Deepen your clinical application of NARM in this advanced training for experienced NARM practitioners. Includes live demos, case consultations, and advanced experiential learning.
Need help choosing a training path?
We're here to support you!
Led by NARM Creator Dr. Laurence Heller
Public Group Case Consultations
Join Public Case Consultations led by NARM creator Dr. Laurence Heller!
These Public Consults are open to all helping professionals and anyone interested in deepening their understanding of applying NARM to their work with complex trauma. Receive expert consultation in a supportive group setting.
Learn more about NARM and explore some of the most unique and challenging cases presented by fellow NARM professionals.
find narm resources
NARM Resource Shop
The NARM Resources Shop is your on-demand learning center designed to help you stay connected with NARM at your own pace. Explore a collection of pre-recorded webinars, demo sessions with debriefs, and demo bundles from multi-part client series—all in one convenient place.
In addition to recorded content, you’ll find e-books, worksheets, and other valuable tools to support your ongoing personal and professional growth.
Recommended NARM Books
Healing Shame and Guilt
The Developmental Roots of Chronic Shame and Guilt and How the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) Can Help You Heal and Reconnect
Available May 12, 2026. Shame and guilt are core processes that can significantly limit our lives: They diminish our capacity for intimacy, trust, and connection. They fuel anxiety. They contribute to relationship struggles and amplify issues at work. And yet, we may not even be aware of the self-shaming habits that cause our distress! NARM Founder, Dr. Laurence Heller and therapist and NARM Teacher, Stephan Niederwieser provide practical tools for identifying and treating chronic shame.
The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma
Using the NeuroAffective Relational Model to Address Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resolve Complex Trauma
Written by NARM creator Dr. Laurence Heller and co-author Brad Kammer, this accessible guide introduces one of the first comprehensive models for addressing complex PTSD (C-PTSD). It presents an integrated mind-body approach to healing attachment, developmental, and relational trauma—making NARM principles understandable for both clinicians and the wider public.
Healing Developmental Trauma
How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship
Co-authored by NARM creator Dr. Laurence Heller and Dr. Aline LaPierre, this influential book continues to transform how therapists and individuals approach complex trauma and the healing process. Now translated into 15 different languages, Healing Developmental Trauma continues to reach readers around the world. Available in print and audiobook formats on Amazon and other booksellers.
Real Feedback from NARM Trainees
I just wanted to share that I have been implementing the few skills that we learned in the training to work with my clients and have been blown away by how different I feel and how much deeper my clients are able to go. Over the past few years I have been searching for a therapy that would bring greater depth, resolution, ease, and presence into my work and feel so fortunate to have landed in this NARM training. I was feeling so lost and unable to effect lasting change that I was considering going into another field. This really has been life changing and gives me more hope that I can also work through my own developmental trauma so that I can provide a holding space for others to do the same.
I have been a practicing clinician for over 30 years, working with trauma and attachment disruption across the life span. I want to share my excitement about the power of the NeuroAffective Relational Model in addressing these issues. NARM provides a comprehensive theoretical explanation about the underpinnings of developmental trauma as well as a treatment approach to unravelling these deep-seated issues, allowing for meaningful and life-changing healing. It has been personally transforming for me, leading to greater expansion, emotional freedom and a clearer pathway to authentic connection.
I have found it really life changing. It has deepened my sense of agency, introduced me to a whole new world of like-minded people and has shown me how I can use NARM within my scope of practice to support people to notice their own strategies and connect to their agency. I am so grateful to have had this experience. NARM has supported me to change my life.
Free NARM Webinar
Watch an Intro to NARM with Dr. Laurence Heller, NARM Creator
View a free introduction to the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) for healing attachment, relational, and developmental trauma. Dr. Laurence Heller, the creator of NARM, leads a 90-minute introduction webinar, discussing the origins and foundational principles of NARM.
What you will learn from this introductory webinar:
- An overview of NARM’s approach to working with complex trauma
- NARM’s roots in the fields of somatic psychology, relational psychodynamic psychology, and interpersonal neurobiology
- The distinction between shock and developmental trauma
- The NARM clinical approach as applied through a clinical demonstration
Start Your Journey Toward Trauma-Informed Care with NARM Today
The NARM® Training Institute offers professional training for those working with developmental and complex trauma. Our mission—to humanize and depathologize the mental health field and other helping professions—is at the heart of our trainings.