NARM Training Institute

This webinar explores how shame functions as a powerful, often hidden force that narrows clients’ lives—shaping self-image, limiting relationships, and fueling performance anxiety and self-rejection. NARM Master Therapist Sherri Sharkins and NARM founder Dr. Laurence Heller examine how shame originates in early attachment experiences, where children internalize unmet needs and emotional neglect as personal failure. This internalized shame often becomes a lifelong pattern, impacting how clients view themselves and engage with the world.

The webinar offers helping professionals insights into identifying and gently challenging these shame-based patterns in therapy. Emphasis is placed on recognizing shame as a dynamic process—something clients do to themselves—rather than a fixed identity. Through clinical examples and practical interventions, therapists are guided in creating corrective emotional experiences, exploring the origins of shame, and supporting clients in exploring how their internalized anger impacts self-shaming patterns. The session also highlights how to support clients in expanding their lives through increased self-awareness, agency, and compassionate self-connection.