Neuro Emotional Technique and Trauma Therapy: Jef Gazley describes one of the newer “power therapies” and stress reduction techniques.

Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) is one of the newer “power therapies” and stress reduction techniques that, along with thought field therapy (TFT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), have become popular in the last 10 years. They seem to work faster than traditional talk therapies because they target the more primitive parts of the brain, including the limbic system, the medulla oblongata and the enkephalin system, which is found in every cell of the body.

NET seems to work in several ways: it diagnosis problems and feelings; accesses the subconscious; discovers early traumas and how those traumas relate to present problems; acts as a biofeedback loop that teaches people what they are feeling; increases congruence between the human brain, composed of the cerebral cortex and the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system or mammalian brain, the medulla oblongata, or reptilian brain, and the endorphin system, which is an even more primitive brain located in each cell of the body.

This congruence thereby increases overall mental, emotional and physical health. The possibilities for the spiritual side of man are also immense. It also acts as a general stress reduction technique and lowers stress significantly on the cellular level.

While all of these are good reasons to become proficient in NET, with trauma work and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this technique is a must. PTSD is so pervasive and the symptoms are attached so securely to the body that unless some relief to the physical part of the trauma is attained, the client will remain in great distress.

Dr. Scott Walker, a chiropractor by training, developed NET in the early 1980s as a stress reduction technique. Walker also uses applied kinesiology, which he says is based on Chinese medicine, acupuncture and the meridian system.

NET diagnoses the feelings that a client is having, and the client then often reports congruence with that previously dissociated set of feelings. Then it releases it from the body by tapping on a few vertebrae that are related to the particular meridian system that is associated with the emotion. Usually, at that point several things occur. The client subjectively reports a lessening of that particular feeling state that was bothering them; a feeling of relief; less dissociation in general; and more overall integration.

Jef Gazley, MS, LMFT, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 40 years and is the owner operator of AskTheInterneTherapist.com and EnergyPsychologyTherapy.com.