In short, Neuro Emotional Techniques (NETs) remove the locked-up physiological states in order to release the somato-psychic driven mental blocks stopping a person from “moving-on” to a better quality of life.
On the Gold Coast in the late 1980s I completed a course on Total Body Modification (TBM) run by a chiropractor-osteopath named Victor Frank. This is a system of physical healing first taught in 1978 as an integrative approach to restoring the body’s self-regulation healing capacity through correcting the spine to free physical restraints on the autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system has two parts. One part, named the sympathetic nervous system, is a bundle of nerves that extend from the brain down through the spine, where individual nerves branch out between the various spinal vetebra to link with the various organs. It excites organs into activity. The other part of the autonomic nervous system, named the parasympathetic nervous system, which is predominantly the vagus nerve bundle running down the front of the body, relaxes the organs.
TBM useds bio-energetic techniques to determine which organs and tissues of the body are over-functioning or under-functioning. It then uses a protocol of physical correction techniques, applied using an instrument or the hands to specific reflex points along the spine. The techniques either temper or boost the nerve signals.
While normal chiropractic techniques correct physical body structure to enhance its function, the TBM corrections are intended to induce the autonomic nervous system to regain normal signalling, and thus restore normal organ and tissue function—and by doing this, the structure of the body improves. It works really well. Over the years I modified this to modulate the vagus nerve alongside the spinal corrections.
The Neuro Emotional Techniques
NET was refined from TBM by the chiropractors—Drs. Scott and Deb Walker—to include the use of non-needle acupressure correction methods to address physical imbalances via the meridian system -( and its link with nerve dysfunction). I also studied and completed these courses in the early 1990s and Larisa from the late 1990s.
Although NET was originally developed as an improvement on TBM to find and correct nervous stress that was related to a physical problems, very early on patients were reporting that they were feeling significantly less emotionally stressed, happier, more at ease. Many indicated that the ‘dramas’ in their lives were disappearing and they were emotionally more stable. NETs today are now used as physical techniques to help remove emotional stress through altering inappropriate autonomic nervous firing.
Most clinical approaches working with emotional stress and “poor-identity” relationships, have long been associated with talk-it-out psychotherapy, counseling, and other linguistic modalities. Research has shown—and we anecdotally understand—that accompanying emotional stress we often experience muscle tension (we clench our jaws or our fists or we become weak), nervous storms occur in our trunk upsetting our organs (we feel sick, have to go to the toilet, have difficulty breathing), our chemistry changes (we feel hungry or don’t feel hungry, menstrual cycle changes, etc), and eventually our immune system suffers and we get sick.
When psychologists/counsellors use guided discussion/imagery that skillfully focuses on a client’s life challenges, they certainly help their clients to open up to options—and this hope/new direction can relieve emotional stress and open the way for changes in self-identity with many people. Sometimes the talk-it-out therapies just can’t resolve the emotional stress, even after several sessions.
This is where combining talk-it-out therapies with physical techniques such as NETs is a lot more effective. (Balancing the brain chemistry with diet takes this to another level, and I will address this in a future blog).
The focus of Neuro Emotional Techniques is to identify and correct spinal subluxations and meridian imbalances and not to “correct” the emotions. Emotional changes are normal phenomena found in humans and animals. The problem is when emotional imbalances continue for too long, then they can eventually lock-in unhealthy physical changes (psycho-somatic induced responses) which then feed back to compound the emotional stress (somato-psychic feedback responses).
AnNeuro Emotional Techniques session includes:
• Adjusting specific spinal subluxations or a sequence of subluxations.
• Addressing a specific emotion.
• Freeing-up conditioned responses so they can dissolve naturally.
• Balancing meridians and modulating specific acupuncture points.
• Modulating (strengthening or weakening) skeletal muscle responses.
• Removing negative emotional realities linked with memories of past significant traumatic events.
• Removing the vulnerable “state-of-mind” to spiral back into the emotional stress.
NETs do not employ counseling, nor advise behavioral changes, nor have a goal of insight for the client. They are not a ‘talk-it-out’ cure. They do not teach anything, and they do not show a person how to learn from their life experiences.
NETs Work This Way:
• When we are not able to achieve our wants, needs, desires, or goals for ourselves (and others close to us), we can experience stressful thoughts (coloured with negative emotions) which ramp-up nervous storms in our brains.
Nervous brain storms can cause changes to our postural body language through inappropriate nervous firing. For example when we feel defeated we slump, and when we have to defend ourselves we tense up and become solid.
• Changes to our postural body language puts tension on the structural alignment of the spine—and if held long enough will eventually cause spinal subluxations, and result in changes to the shape of the spine.
• The spinal subluxations then pinch the spinal nerves to cause mis-firing of autonomic nerves to specific organs, which then dysfunction.
• The spinal subluxations also pinch skeletal nerves to cause mis-firing to specific limb muscles causing them to tighten or weaken, and then sublux limb joints.
• Together, spinal misalignment, organ dysfunction and limb muscles/joint disruption cause meridian imbalances (from Traditional Chinese Meridian theory).
• Each meridian also responds to one of five major negative emotions (via Five Phase Law of Traditional Chinese Medicine).
• Imbalanced meridians tend to lock-in recurring negative emotions, which then reinforces the postural body language and meridian imbalance, locking-in a physical-energetic cycle and making it harder for the person to free themselves from the negation emotions to move on with their lives.
• Correcting the primary spinal subluxations is one way to break this physical-energetic cycle. This results in restored nervous firing to organs and limb muscles—which has a rapid balancing effect on the meridians. This allows the emotional response to dissolve and frees the person to move on.
Appointment Sessions
1. NET sessions take about 15 minutes to correct the sequence of spinal subluxations.
2. Customising medicines to stop the nervous emotional storms returning, takes an extra 15 minutes.
3. If you want to be shown corrective exercises to keep the spine aligned, this will take another 15 minutes.
4. If you require additional counselling or psychotherapy, extra appointments will have to be made.
When you phone for your Neuro Emotional Techniques appointment, indicate if you require any of the extra therapies.