Developmental needs meeting strategy (DNMS)
Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS)
The Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS) is objected toward remediating developmental deficits which a person might develop in one of the development stages. The DNMS protocols is based on the assumption that the degree to which childhood needs were not adequately met at a given developmental stage correlates with the degree to which the adult client is stuck at that particular stage.
What to expect?
When a client has endured overwhelming childhood neglect, abuse, or dysfunctional parenting sufficient to result the mental compartmentalization of experiences, one (or more) neural networks or ego states get stuck in the past. This idea was supported by Maslow (1968) who believed that significant unmet needs during developmental stages could lead one to “fixate” on those needs for the remainder of life, and Erikson (1950) who proposed when persons’ childhood needs were inadequately met they can develop enduring counterproductive thinking, affect, and behaviors.
How does it work?
The DNMS has similarity with “inner child” psychotherapy, which is founded on the idea that adults who suffered neglect, abuse, or unmet needs from childhood can overcome past hurts by inviting competent adult parts of self to nurture wounded child parts. The DNMS attempts to get child ego states unstuck from the past by directing the client’s own internal resources to meet needs in present, that were not met in childhood. These internal resources are developed in a very systematic and structured way. They are referred to as the “Resources” throughout treatment . The protocols guide the Resources to give the child ego states (child parts) the needed “corrective emotional experiences.” Positive changes in cognition, emotions, and behavior follow when a child part becomes totally unstuck.
The DNMS devolved under the influence of the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model, which was proposed by Francine Shapiro to offer a theoretical basis for the efficacy of EMDR therapy (Shapiro, 2001). In the AIP model information is conceptualized to be stored in a system of neural networks containing related thoughts, memories, images, emotions, and sensations. The model proposes: under ideal conditions a person might experience a disturbing event, assimilate it and process it through. The disturbing material gradually connects to positive adaptive information.
When is it used?
When parents are cold, distant, neglectful or inconsistent, and when they fail to teach skillful management of emotions or resolution of interpersonal conflicts, their child can develop an unstable sense of self, tenuous attachments, dissociative absorption, amnesia, and identity disintegration commonly associated with trauma. DNMS is usually employed to fix developmental defects and with other neurotic problems. Studies have revealed that DNMS also helps in treating dissociative disorders.
Role of therapist:
The therapist initiates employing structured protocols to assist the client develop three internal Resources: a Spiritual Core Self, a Protective Adult Self, and a Nurturing Adult Self. This step might last for 20 minutes only or as long as a year. Once developed, the Resources are invited to come together and form a “Healing Circle,” which is the core of the DNMS protocols. A 20-step DNMS protocol is then used to get ego states unstuck from general experiences of poor parenting, neglect or abuse. A 12-Step DNMS trauma protocol is employed to get ego states unstuck from specific events or traumas, where unmet developmental needs were relevant or significant. Statistics have further implicated that the majority of clients that have responded well and on whom DNMS was utilized were woman.
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REFERENCE
Approach Applied to Dissociative Identity Disorder, The Journal of Trauma & Dissociation is published by Haworth Press, Inc.