The ALARM Childhood Wounding Audit
Six unrepaired childhood experiences that lodge as bodily alarm
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 80%
ALARM is Kennedy's mnemonic for the categories of unrepaired childhood experience that lodge as a state of physical alarm and later drive anxiety. A is for Abuse (physical, emotional or sexual) and Abandonment; L is for Loss such as a parent's death or divorce; R is for Rejection or bullying; M is for anything that made you Mature too early, such as becoming the man or woman of the house prematurely; S is for Shame. The decisive variable is repair: an event that is acknowledged and repaired builds resilience, whereas the same event left unaddressed forms an alarm track in the body. The audit is a lightweight self-inquiry that gives a diffuse felt sense a name and a probable origin, making it easier to face rather than avoid.
Origin
Dr. Russell Kennedy, who says he got through medical school on acronyms, distilled his clinical and personal experience of anxiety into the ALARM mnemonic for the unrepaired childhood experiences that seed a lifelong state of alarm.
Core principles
- 01Not everything is trauma, but unrepaired wounding sets an alarm track in the nervous system
- 02It is the lack of repair, not the event alone, that lodges the alarm
- 03Naming the source category makes the diffuse alarm easier to face
- 04Sensitive children are more likely to download wounding into the body
How to run it
- 1
Screen for Abuse and Abandonment
Consider whether you experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse, or abandonment whether physical or emotional. These form the A of the acronym.
- 2
Screen for Loss
Identify significant losses such as the death of a parent or a divorce that disrupted your sense of security.
- 3
Screen for Rejection
Consider experiences of rejection or bullying, which the amygdala can replay years later as if they were happening now.
- 4
Screen for Maturing too early
Ask whether you had to grow up prematurely, becoming the man or woman of the house before you were ready.
- 5
Screen for Shame
Consider pervasive shame carried from childhood, which lodges in self-referential parts of the brain and drives negative self-appraisal.
- 6
Ask which went unrepaired
For each item, ask whether it was ever acknowledged and repaired. Unrepaired items are the ones most likely to have set the alarm track feeding your anxiety.
Pro tip Repair, not the absence of hardship, is what builds a resilient nervous system.
Watch out Do not turn every ordinary childhood difficulty into trauma; the point is to find genuinely unrepaired wounding.
In the wild
Kennedy notes that combat veterans who go through the same firefight and later develop PTSD are usually the ones with unrepaired childhood trauma. The ALARM audit surfaces that pre-existing track: the childhood wounding is the seed that makes later stress lodge as lasting alarm rather than resolving in weeks.
→ Understanding the pre-set alarm explains why two people respond very differently to the same adult stressor.
Common mistakes
Turning everything into trauma
Using the audit to relabel every childhood memory as trauma inflates the problem; Kennedy repeatedly stresses not everything is trauma.
Focusing on the event, not the repair
Fixating on how bad an event was misses the real variable, which is whether it was ever repaired.
Is it for you?
Best for
People beginning to explore the roots of their anxiety who want a simple diagnostic lens on childhood wounding.
Not ideal for
Anyone who would use it to pathologise every childhood memory, since Kennedy stresses not everything is trauma.
From the transcript
“It's called alarm. So if you experience abuse, physical, emotional, sexual abuse, loss, loss of parents, loss of divorce, abandonment is the A. R is…”
“It's not so much the trauma, it's the fact that it wasn't repaired.”
From the episode
How To Fix Your Brain’s Addiction To Anxiety & Worry - Dr Russell Kennedy - #951
Dr Russell Kennedy