Quotes from Laurence Heller

In general, it is useful when working with chronic anxiety to look for split-off anger. On the journey toward reconnection with core expression and the life force, anxiety and anger are ultimately transformed into healthy self-expression, strength, and the capacity for separation/individuation.

grieving is an important element in the reconnection process. Grief is how human beings come to terms with irrevocable loss.

In a healing cycle, connection to our body, emotions, and life force allows for greater connection with others, and in turn, connection with others supports greater connection to ourselves. The connection that has always been our deepest desire is now no longer our greatest fear.

As we experience the development of personal agency, we come to see that the rejection we fear from the world has already happened.

Affect dysregulation

In summary, to reestablish agency, a NARM therapist explores with clients how they are contributing to their own suffering—how they may be consciously or unconsciously instrumental in creating their own distress as adults.

Connection types have gone into freeze in order to survive. They are sensitive organisms whose capacity for intimacy and independence are greatly limited.

Autonomy and a sense of independence are the core capacities that have failed to develop fully in those who exhibit this survival style.

Attuned parents support increasing age-appropriate independence and autonomy. Highly anxious parents undermine their children's developing need for independence because of their own unresolved fears. They prevent their age-appropriate movement toward autonomy in order to "protect" their children.

As the child grows older, obtaining love from the parents becomes linked to pleasing them, so that love is associated with duty, burden, and bondage. For many with this survival style, obtaining love becomes inextricably tied with the necessity to please, often at the expense of their own integrity and autonomy.

Individuals with the Autonomy Survival Style have had to face the dilemma of choosing between themselves or their parents. To submit to their parents leaves them feeling invaded, controlled, and crushed. On the other hand, their loving feelings and the need to maintain the attachment relationship keep them from overtly challenging parents.

Adaptive Survival Style Shame-Based Identification Connection Feel shame at existing, feeling, and connecting Attunement Feel shame when experiencing and communicating their needs Trust Feel shame when feeling dependent, vulnerable, or weak Autonomy Feel shame at their impulses toward self-determination, autonomy, and independence Love/Sexuality Feel shame about sharing their heart and relational intimacy

The tendency to brood and ruminate is typical of this survival style. These individuals ruminate after personal encounters, berating themselves about whether they did or said the right thing, chastising themselves for any "mistakes" they feel they made in the interaction, wondering if they said the right thing or hurt the person's feelings.

To the degree that the internal capacity to attend to our own core needs develops, we experience self-regulation, internal organization, expansion, connection, and aliveness, all attributes of physiological and psychological well-being. Supporting the healthy development of the core capacities is central to the NARM approach.

Individuals with the Love-Sexuality Survival Style are highly energetic, attractive, and successful. They are the doers and the winners of the world, the sports heroes, cheerleaders, top actors and actresses, the people who often become the icons of our collective consciousness.

Individuals with the Connection Survival Style already see their lives as problems to be solved, so that if a therapist holds a primarily problem-solving focus, these clients' vulnerable inner world can be missed.

Called upon to give her baby what she never received herself, this mother may be conflicted about giving, unconsciously wanting her baby to give her the love and nurturing she never received.

Individuals with the Attunement Survival Style have difficulty attuning to their own needs; knowing, allowing, and expressing their needs is associated with humiliation, loss, and fear of rejection. Many individuals with the Attunement Survival Style become caretakers.

As a result of the earliest trauma, individuals with the Connection Survival Style have disconnected from their bodies, from themselves, and from relationship. Connection types have two seemingly different coping styles or subtypes: the thinking and the spiritualizing subtypes.

Toxic shame begins as an adaptation to adverse childhood experiences. Shame is the mechanism of disconnecting from and attacking the Self. Shame becomes a survival strategy to protect against attachment loss and environmental failure, which are experienced as loss of love in the universe. When shame occurs early in a child's development, their sense of Self becomes associated with shame.

This survival style's deepest longing for connection is also its deepest fear.

A healthy child protests when they are mistreated.

A good example to illustrate the difference between the inhibited and unsatisfied types is the state of their cupboards: the cupboards of the inhibited subtype tend to be nearly empty, and these individuals become anxious if their cupboards are too full while the cupboards of the unsatisfied subtype are overflowing, and they become anxious when supplies start to diminish.

The challenge for Attunement individuals is to learn how to attune to their own needs, to express them appropriately, and to tolerate more charge, fulfillment, expansion, and aliveness.