EMDR Mini-conference
April 30 and May 1, 2005 at Oakland's Preservation Park
Developmental Needs Meeting Protocol
Shirley Jean Schmidt, LPC
Program Abstract
The Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS) is a therapy approach for treating clients
wounded by childhood abuse, neglect, enmeshment, inadequate parenting, or any other unmet
developmental needs. It 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 client is stuck in that stage. The DNMS is an ego state therapy which guides
the client’s own internal resources to meet needs now that were not met in childhood.
Needs meeting work begins with the assimilation of three internal Resources (Spiritual
Core Self, Nurturing Adult Self, and Protective Adult Self). They are strengthened
individually and as a group - to form a Healing Circle. The client is asked to invite into
the Circle of Resources, a child part of self that is stuck in the past. Once safely
inside the Circle, the Resources can meet the child part’s unmet developmental needs,
process any strong emotions (e.g. fear, anger, grief), and attach securely to the child.
The process helps each stuck child ego states have the “corrective emotional
experience” needed to become totally unstuck. Processing is enhanced with alternating
bilateral stimulation (commonly used in EMDR therapy). As developmental needs get met, the
client’s unwanted beliefs, behaviors, and urges disappear. Remarkably, in the
process, developmental-stage traumas often desensitize automatically. The DNMS provides
for attachment and attunement needs, builds self-esteem, desensitizes developmental
traumas, furnishes a container for processing strong emotions, integrates dissociated
parts of self, and can be used as a tool for affect regulation.
Although not EMDR, the DNMS evolved out of an EMDR practice. It integrates concepts from EMDR, developmental psychology, ego state therapy, and inner child work. DNMS Resource development protocols can be integrated seamlessly with EMDR. Other concepts and protocols being presented are not EMDR, but generally of great interest to EMDR therapists. Like EMDR, the DNMS is client-centered and uses alternating bilateral stimulation.
Bio
Shirley Jean Schmidt, MA is a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in San
Antonio, TX and the author of The Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy: An Ego State
Therapy for Healing Childhood Wounds. She has trained hundreds of clinicians in the DNMS
model at regional, national, and international workshops and conferences since 2002. She
is an EMDRIA-Approved consultant for EMDR therapy. She is a member, and past president of
the San Antonio Trauma & Dissociation Professional Study Group. She has published many
articles about EMDR, ego state therapy, pain management, and DNMS. Many are posted on her
web site, www.shirleyjeanschmidt.com. The latest article, titled Developmental Needs
Meeting Strategy: A New Treatment Approach Applied to Dissociative Identity Disorder, was
published in the December 2004 issue of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. It is
posted at www.dnmsinstitute.com/dnms_article.pdf.
Program Objectives
Participants will be able to describe the DNMS procedures for:
1. Connecting client to 3 Resources (SCS, NAS, & PAS)
2. Selecting child parts for processing with ego state mapping
3. Using the 20-Step protocol to get child parts unstuck
Program Outline
30 minutes DNMS overview
15 minutes Connecting to three Resources
30 minutes Video of connecting to Resources
15 minutes Understanding introjects and reactive parts
15 minutes Break
15 minutes Selecting child parts for processing with ego state mapping
15 minutes 20-Step Needs Meeting protocol
30 minutes Video of a 20-Step needs meeting protocol session
15 minutes Question and Answer