The Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy
A highly effective
therapy for treating
dissociative, attachment-
wounded adults.
therapy for treating
dissociative, attachment-
wounded adults.


What is the DNMS?
The DNMS is an ego state therapy for healing adults stuck in unwanted behaviors, beliefs, emotions, and urges that are rooted in childhood attachment wounds.
DNMS Developer
In 2000, Shirley Jean Schmidt, MA, LPC, first started experimenting with needs-meeting protocols that would help clients wounded in childhood get their unmet developmental needs met now.


Free Introductory Webinars
Watch one of two Introduction to the DNMS webinars. One is for EMDR therapists. The other is for everyone else. They’re both available to watch right now. Most therapists can get 1 CE.
On-Demand Webinar
This new, 16-hour, self-paced webinar, How to Prepare Dissociative, Attachment-Wounded Clients for EMDR, is a great way to learn the DNMS. It provides detailed instruction with lots of concrete examples, sample dialogues, and client videos.


DNMS Books
The latest book, Ego State Therapy Interventions to Prepare Attachment-Wounded Adults for EMDR, provides excellent guidance for all therapists who struggle to stabilize dissociative clients.
The TheraTapper
A device for delivering alternating bilateral tactile stimulation. The kind used in EMDR and DNMS therapy.
