The
Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS) is a therapy approach synthesized
by Shirley Jean Schmidt, MA, a licensed professional counselor in private practice
in San Antonio, Texas. Its development was informed by number of well-known therapies
and disciplines, such as neuroscience, developmental psychology, ego state therapy,
inner-child work, and EMDR. It is based on what is known about how a child's brain
develops within a healthy family.
The
Basis for the DNMS Children grow and develop in stages.
Each developmental stage involves a set of needs which should be met by parents
or caretakers. The degree to which your childhood needs were not adequately met
at a given developmental stage correlates to the degree to which you may be stuck
in that stage. If you are stuck in childhood, there's always a risk of something
retriggering a child part of self. For example, you may feel like an adult one
minute, then something upsetting happens and you're suddenly seeing the world
through the eyes of a sad, angry, or fearful child. This could account for behaviors,
beliefs, or emotions that you have now, that you do not like and do not want.
Getting
Stuck: Unmet Developmental Needs Children become
stuck when they cannot make sense of highly significant disturbing or confusing
experiences. This is obvious in the case of outright abuse or neglect by a highly
dysfunctional parent. For example, a child who was assaulted during her father's
violent outbursts may carry a fear of men into adulthood. In less obvious ways,
children can become stuck when well-meaning, caring parents are simply not sufficiently
equipped to meet certain needs. This can happen if the child's needs are particularly
complex or obscure, if a parent has parenting skill deficits, if a parent has
emotional baggage from the past that compromises good parenting, if the overall
family or environmental situation is very stressful, or if any combination of
these is true. Children who expect their loving, caring parents to meet their
needs well are confused when their needs are ignored, misunderstood, or trivialized
instead. When this happens often enough, or around significant issues, the child
will get stuck in those experiences. When there is a good match between a child's
needs and a caregiver's parenting skill, the child will grow up feeling secure.
When the match is not so good, however well-intentioned the parent, a child will
accumulate emotional baggage. The bigger the mismatch, the more baggage accumulates.
What are Ego States? The
brain is composed of billions of individual cells, called neurons. These neurons
form simple and complex neural networks which hold specific information about
the behaviors, beliefs, emotions, and body sensations associated with specific
experiences. Complex neural networks can become engrained when positive experiences
occur repeatedly (such as praise or encouragement), when negative experiences
occur repeatedly (such as neglect or verbal abuse), or when highly traumatic experiences
occur.
These
types of complex neural networks can take on different points of view, like sub-personalities.
For example, a neural network formed experiencing praise and encouragement may
have "I'm worthwhile" point of view, while a neighboring neural network
formed experiencing verbal abuse may have an "I'm worthless" point of
view. Likewise, a neural network holding a highly traumatizing experience may
have an "I'm not safe" point of view.
An
engrained neural network with a point of view is an ego state, or a part of self.
It is very normal to have parts of self-- everyone has them. We experience parts
of self when we feel ambivalent. Perhaps you can recall a time when one part of
you wanted to tell a lie while another part wanted to tell the truth, one part
wanted to get drunk while another wanted to stay sober, one part wanted to eat
smart while another wanted to eat junk, or one part wanted to give generously
while another wanted to be miserly.
Ego
states can develop in reaction to both positive and negative experiences. Ego
states formed by positive/affirming experiences live in the present. Ego states
formed by negative/wounding experiences, such as trauma, abuse, neglect, or unmet
developmental needs, are stuck in the past. Some ego states are large, such as
the part of self that includes all the behaviors and experiences of a person's
occupation, and some are small, such as one holding the experience of a single
event at age three. Ego states are dynamic and change over time - usually becoming
more engrained (for better or worse), as new events are interpreted based on past
experience and bias.
Parts
of self can interact with other parts of self, in a cooperative or combative manner.
Because ego states can have different points of view, they can have competing
agendas. That can lead to internal conflicts or double binds. You might be aware
of times you have felt an internal battle about something you should or should
not do, or should or should not believe about yourself.
The
DNMS can help wounded ego states have the corrective emotional experiences necessary
to get unstuck from the past and come forward to live comfortably in the present.
It can also help resolve conflicts between ego states. All this can lead to positive
changes in emotions, beliefs, and behaviors.
What
is the DNMS? The DNMS is a therapy for getting parts
of self totally unstuck from the past. Getting unstuck can be considered a process
of archiving past hurts. For example, in a typical office there is an in-box on
the desk, a file cabinet next to the desk, a file cabinet across the room, and
archive file cabinet down the hall. The in-box contains the most current papers.
The archive file cabinets contain the oldest records, not vital to day-to-day
business. The archives are available, when needed, for researching the past. When
we are stuck in past hurts it\rquote s as though the old painful experiences that
should be in the archive cabinet, are in the in-box. We have to deal with them
every day, whether we want to or not. We want to file them away, but have no idea
how or where to file them, so sadly they stay in our in-box. Getting unstuck means
we can finally archive those old experiences. Our previously unfinished business
gets finished. Our memories of the painful experiences still exist, but they are
no longer charged with powerful emotions and no longer irrationally intrude on
daily living
