Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM)®

The Comprehensive Resource Model® (CRM) is a neuro-biologically based, affect-focused trauma treatment model which facilitates targeting of traumatic experiences by bridging the most primitive aspects of the person and their brain (midbrain/brainstem), to their purest, healthiest parts of the self.  This bridge catalyzes the mind and body to access all forms of emotional trauma and stress by utilizing layers of internal resources such as attachment neurobiology, beneficial affiliation neurochemistry,  breathwork skills, brain neuroplasticity, our deep connection to the natural world for survival, toning and sacred geometry, and one’s relationship with self, our intuition, and higher consciousness. The sequencing and combination of these resources, and the eye positions that anchor them, provide the opportunity for unbearable emotions and pain to be stepped into and felt fully while the client is fully present and aware moment to moment which changes how the memories affect the person.

The new perspective obtained when the pain is stepped into allows a new orienting towards the emotions that have stayed, perhaps under the surface, since the time of the traumas. This provides a mismatch experience where the neurobiological confusion that arises when the body activation of “The pain is so unbearable I can’t possibly step into it” occurs closely in time before resource-based processing that leads to “I’ve just stepped into the pain and it looks different now. I’ve survived and it is bearable”. The mismatch occurring when the trauma memory has been activated concurrently with an opposing tolerable experience of that memory promotes reconsolidation of the memory so that it is laid down again in the brain’s memory systems without the distress it previously carried. We argue that CRM® is a memory reconsolidation therapy in which the crucial mismatches happen at the brainstem, rather than the cortical, level.

CRM® uniquely accesses and clears the origin of the split second moments of intolerable affect that result in defense responses which lead to life-interfering symptoms, addictions, and disconnection from self and others. The potential for clearing neurobiological debris from the nervous system clears the way for positive neuro-plasticity and personal expansion whether that is seen as spiritual or otherwise, and which is separate from one’s history of pain and woundedness.

Work is done from the time of conception through the present and includes methods for working with generational trauma out of the realm of the client’s conscious knowledge. This is a heart-centered approach in which clients are guided to re-member who they really are and to learn to embody their true authentic self in their day to day lives.

What kind of clients benefit from CRM®?

CRM® was originally developed for use with those individuals who experience the challenges of Complex PTSD, severe Dissociative Disorders, and Attachment Disorders, however most psychiatric diagnoses are effectively addressed through the use of this model.  The question is not “Can I use this with x, y, z diagnosis?” but rather “How do I use CRM® with any diagnosis”.  Military veterans and their families find this modality to be particularly effective in healing the deep wounds caused by war. Performance Enhancement goals for sports, expressive arts, public speaking or any type of performance needs in any age group are most often effectively reached.

CRM® works well with children as young as 4 years old as well as adolescents, adults and couples.  Group therapy benefits from creative use of various aspects of the model in inpatient, partial hospital and outpatient group settings.