The Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy: Eight case studies.

Abstract

This study investigates the merits of the Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS), a relatively new ego state therapy. The DNMS is based on the assumption that many presenting problems are due to wounded ego states stuck in childhood because of unmet developmental needs. DNMS protocols endeavor to identify and heal the wounded child parts most responsible for a presenting problem. When internal Resource ego states, which serve as competent caregivers, meet the wounded ego states' developmental needs, the wounded ego states become unstuck and heal. Eight participants were recruited from the private practice caseloads of 3 DNMS therapists. All participants reported significant improvement in the targeted problems, with gains maintained at follow-up. These findings suggest that the DNMS has therapeutic potential.

Resources in EMDR and Other Trauma-Focused Psychotherapy: A Review

“…Schmidt proposed DNMS as an approach to treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and provided single-case data from standardized testing at pretreatment and after both 6 and 17 months of treatment (Schmidt, 2004). In 2007, Schmidt and Hernandez published a case series of eight individuals with "unmet developmental needs"-but no specifi c diagnosestreated by three clinicians trained in the DNMS approach, claiming positive treatment results based on pretreatment, posttreatment, and 5-month follow-up self-ratings of problem severity but without any standardized measures (Schmidt & Hernandez, 2007).…”