The Connection Survival Style and the Earliest Trauma

TL;DR: The Connection Survival Style in NARM addresses how early developmental trauma, particularly preverbal trauma, shapes a person's physiology and ability to connect with others. This trauma, often experienced before birth or during the earliest period of infancy, affects physiological arousal levels and leaves people struggling to express or even recognize their own suffering. The core theme when working with this trauma is safety, as early trauma leads to a pervasive sense of felt threat, making disconnection feel safer than connection.

In the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), we focus on the effects of developmental trauma on a person's identity, capacity for emotional regulation, and capacity for relationship through the framework of the NARM Adaptive Survival Styles. Each Survival Style corresponds to a specific early developmental stage, and the trauma that occurs during the earliest phase of life is reflected through what we call the Connection Survival Style.?

In this clip from the final module of the NARM Basics Training, NARM trainer Ralf Marzen provides an in-depth exploration of the earliest forms of trauma and the central adaptations that develop into the Connection Survival Style. For helping professionals who work with the Connection Survival Style, learning about the effects of this earliest trauma is crucial, and it begins by understanding two key themes.

First, to understand the Connection Survival Style, it's important to understand that the earliest form of trauma takes place preverbally, sometimes even before someone is born. This preverbal trauma is experienced largely physiologically and does not have explicit memory or stories connected to it. Because of this, people who suffer from the impacts of preverbal trauma can find it difficult to recognize and understand their own suffering, oftentimes finding it impossible to express what they're experiencing through words. This can make it very difficult for most talk therapy models to effectively address this preverbal trauma.

Second, safety is the central theme when working with the earliest form of trauma. When a person's first experiences on earth are traumatic, that person feels unsafe–in their existence, in their body, and in their relationships with others. It is our birthright to be born with a sense of,?"It's safe to be here; it's safe to connect."?For those who experienced early preverbal trauma, that sense of safety gets replaced by a consistent sense of threat that is accompanied by high physiological arousal. The common strategy is to disconnect from self and others. As Dr. Laurence Heller (creator of NARM) says, "In the face of the earliest trauma, disconnection feels safer than staying connected."

These key themes of the earliest trauma–its preverbal and physiologically-based nature and its impact on a person's sense of safety–are first steps in learning about the Connection Survival Style. To learn more, watch the training clip.