Thinking About a Problem While Getting Adjusted? Neuro Emotional Technique Twenty Years Later

S coit Walker, D.C., has been a chiropractor for over forty-three years. Frustrated with uneven results in practice, he developed the Neuro Emotional Technique (NET). In addition to having written numerous magazine articles, he has authored many technique manuals, charts, audio and video recordings and also formulated specialized mind-body homeopathic remedies. While teaching internationally with his chiropractor wife. Dr. Deborah Walker, he has also done radio and television interviews and conducted research. He is the founder of the ONE (Our Net Effect) Research Foundation, a non-profit multi-discipline research organization dedicated to doing scientific research on NET. In the United States, the NET Basic seminar is approved for twelve hours of continuing education hours for chiropractors in most states. Dr. Walker is credited with a good sense of humor and making learning a fun experience. In an interview with The American Chiropractor (TAC), Dr. Scott Walker talks about NET's past, present and future. TAC: What is NET? WALKER: NliT is a simple mind-body stress reduction inter­vention aimed at improving behavioral and physical problems, such as in chronic injuries, subluxations. pain, worry, anxiety, depression, etc. TAC: How did you develop this technique? WALKER: In a state of frustration, insecurity and. thankfully, cu­riosity. Nl-T was eventually developed. Initially I felt frustrated because some patients gut well, while others didn't. I also felt insecure because I didn't have a satisfying answer for myself or my patients who asked as to why their conditions didn't respond or why they kept coming back. I was curious, however, and my search took me to "stress" and the body's conditioned emotional reaction to stress. The interesting thing was I, through read­ing neuroscience articles, found the emotional response to be physiologically based and not psychologically based! That was lucky, because I don't know very much about psychology, and I was not about to make a career out of talking, talking, and more talking to patients about their problems! Please save me from that! On the other hand, we, as chiropractors, arc well versed in dealing with physiology. In a nutshell, NET works by having the patient think-feel about their pain/issue while a special vertebral adjustment is given. They do 90 percent of the work. TAC: Could you tell our readers a couple of the most prominent studies that have been published regarding NET? WALKER: NKT has many interesting studies on a surprisingly wide variety of conditions. But. then again, that is what one might expect if there were a truly effective mind-body technique. We have a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) study on Low Back Pain through Macquarie University, which was presented to the International Congress of Complemen­tary Medicine this year, and we arc just finishing a much larger study (it will be the most comprehensive yet in all of chiropractic) on low back pain, complete with urine and blood immune markers. In chiropractic. I guess we would expect that. But more surprising perhaps. NET has RCT's (one out of Oxford) on pho­bias, trigger point resolution, and we have other studies on polycystic ovary. ADD-ADHD. hypothyroidism, separation anxiety, hypercholesteremia, etc. We also did an interesting survey/treatment study on anxiety/depression (using the DRAM instrument) that was remarkably favor­able. And. in addition, this study had the shocking finding that, in the random (188 consecutive patients) chiropractic pre-treatment group population. 34 percent were "at risk" and only 23 percent were normal. This finding strongly suggests. in our regular chiropractic patient popu­lations, over a third of our patients are in deep emotional trouble. Fortunately, however, there was significant improve­ment after the NET intervention. This reminds me of a published study 1 did (it was international in scope) which demonstrated that 90 percent of DCs feel the emotional component of health to be important, yet less than one-third of them had a technique to intervene. Perhaps, for outright interest in studies, maybe the most prominent study is the one we are presently doing on the body stress/trauma related to a patient who receives a diagno­sis of cancer (the pronounced diagnosis, itself, is often as shocking as PTSD). We already did a pilot study at Thomas Jef­ferson University's My ma Blind Center of lntegrative Medicine and Hospital. This pilot study has been published and. although the blood sample was too small to include, we were delighted to see the immune markers, especially Interlcukin 10, dramatically improved, which is also what the preliminary results in the large low back study are now showing. We are now doing a larger study and, who knows, we might have THE profession with the most influence on the immune system. TAC: What does it take to really under- stand the core concepts of NET? WALKER: For actually doing the tech­nique, it takes twelve hours of training in a seminar setting with hands-on workshop. Pretty straight forward. But to actually understand NET in depth, one has to be ready to throw out most of the outdated neurophysiology that was learned in school. For example, we may have learned that emotions are psycho­logical, but now we know they are not; they're physiologically based. We need to sec the inter-relatedness not only between the emotional response and the immune system as in psychneuroimmunology, but also the digestive, cardiovascular, dermatological, and hormonal systems, to name a few. A few basic primers are the books Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert and the excellent Biology ofBeliefby Bruce Lipton. Then follow all the incred­ible advances in neuroscience—advances that are validating chiropractic. TAC: What would be the ideal patient for NET? Is there an ideal? WALKER: Anyone who is experiencing a stubborn physical problem, or anyone is experiencing stress or who has been under significant stress in the past, or has the manifestation of behavioral or health issues with no apparent cause, or someone who has a health challenge that is not resolving with standard chiropractic care, or someone who has emotional blocks to success in their life or health. TAC: What type(s) of diagnostic testing procedures do you use (i.e., X-ray, etc.) and why? WALKER: We encourage our practitioners to retain all of their present techniques and diagnostic instruments and to use NET as a supercharger to make their present techniques work even better. Our pres­ent chiropractic techniques work three to four times better when a compromising emotional factor is neutralized. Although it's not essential for doing the technique, we recommend peer-reviewed validated questionnaires, and any of the standard clinical and lab tests for the hypotha-lamic-pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. While these arc not essential for actu­ally doing NET, they can give interested practitioners confidence as they monitor the progress. TAC: What other therapeutic modalities do you include when treating a patient? WALKER: We use the metaphor of the four bases of a baseball diamond, call­ing it the Home Run Formula to Health. Doctors need to make sure the patient is safe at each base by 1.) providing good structural work. 2.) addressing toxins, 3.) balancing biochemistry, and 4.) de-stress­ing conditioned emotional responses that are affecting the body. NET practitioners arc encouraged to use their structural techniques, as well as specifically for­mulated homcopathics to detoxify the body and nutritional support to balance biochemistry. Of course, NET practitio­ners use NET to address the physiology of unresolved emotional stressors. TAC: Tell us two of your most amazing patient success stories. WALKER: We. all of the NET instructors, have seen many. MANY cases at NET seminars where chiropractors come with their own unresolved low back pain of twenty-plus years and are immediately, resolved after a live-minute NET inter­vention. It's amazing in that chiroprac­tors have low back pain in the first place. and it's really amazing that they can resolve on the spot. The same can be said for other afflictions on these sophisticated DC health-care consumers. I'd tell you of others, but risk losing credibility! TAC: What has really impacted your growth as a chiropractor and that of your practice? WALKER: For me it's not what, but rather who. My heroes have been Drs. George Goodheart, Jimmy Parker, Major De-Jarnette, Ray Nimmo ("Muscles move bones, bones don't move muscles"), and Robert Riddler. I also love to read DD Palmer and BJ. These guys are all gone now. Presently. I also look up to our chiropractic researchers who are laying the scientific foundation for a whole new exciting era in chiropractic. TAC: Dr Walker, what have you been able to accomplish with your work that you are the most proud of? WALKER: 1 am proud of our 6,000 plus NF.T practitioners in over thirty countries around the world delivering cutting edge chiropractic every day. I'm proud because they were forward thinking and saw the value of NF.T before the scientific research validated it. They cared that much about their patients, and they donated money for research based on what they saw clinically. I am proud to be in the same profession. TAC: Explain the relationship between psychologists and chi­ropractors. Is there a creative exchange of information, etc? WALKER: Yes, although we like to smile and say the "issues arc in the tissues," there are often psychological aspects of some problems we encounter which need talk-it-out reasoning and counseling. And. with the emergence of the mind/body or biopsychosocial model, these psychotherapists are very ready to refer to NET practitioners to get their client's nutrition bal­anced, structurally adjusted, etc. TAC: Who/What has been the greatest influence on the way you practice? WALKER: Aside from my heroes I mentioned, I am ever grateful for being raised way out in the country where I learned from nature, my greatest teaeher. I also went to school in a two-room school-house where I was unhurriedly able to absorb the fundamental building blocks of knowledge. My father, a mechanic, patiently taught me how things work and my mother, a nurse, taught me how to care—combine those two and you get a chiroprac­tor. TAC: Throughout the ages, there have been many great healers. Whose approach would you like the most? WALKER: That's easy, Hippocrates, lor separating healing from magic; the Yellow Emperor emblematic for the East's wisdom about nature and healing forming a great basis; and then the brilliant medical heretics, Paracelsus, Scmmelwcis, Hahn-cmann. and DD Palmer. TAC: What are your goals for the chiropractic profession? WALKER: To make DD Palmer's paradigm. "The determining causes of disease are traumatism, poison, and autosuggestion," and "moving thots (sic) produce disease—malice, revenge, remorse, grief, worry, spite, etc."- into a rock solid, scientifically validated, pragmatic and prosperous profession. DD saw it from afar. The 19th century biomedical model has failed miserably: the biopsychosocial (BPS) model is now the predomi­nantly acknowledged viable model. Essentially the BPS was. and is, DD Palmer's paradigm. But we are catching on. The stress factor is there and it is now being acknowledged. There are other techniques besides NET which, depending on the DCs predilections, can help practitioners and are helping with stress. Such examples are Bio Energetic Synchro­nization Technique (B.E.S.T.) and Network Spinal Analysis. In addi­tion. Applied Kinesiology and Total Body Modification (TBM) and. John Amaro's International Academy of Medical Acupuncture (IAMA) have unique approaches. TAC: Any final wordsforour readers? WALKER: It's been a hard tight, but we DCs have done well. We have kept vitalism alive in the face of med­ical and legislative persecution and commercial discrimination. We have fought with them and, of course, be­ing chiropractors, fought with each other, but we have not given up on lighting for our patients" welfare, for what we have seen helps them. 1 encourage everyone to financially support our colleges' scientific research departments. Science is the only currency that spends these days. It better, as we enter into ever more evidenced based third party pay, including a looming fcdcraliza-tion. As you know, we are usually at the very end of the Medicare line with our hands out. We are going to beat traditional medicine using the very weapon they have used against us. science—only better. It used to be the medical establish­ment would say they had research and that we did not. Now, we can say to them, we have research demonstrating that pathophysiology can be eliminated through natural drugless means, thus restoring true health. Furthermore, we can say, "Your medical research may show a certain drug has the ability to force a certain effect; however, that particular medical mechanical paradigm has nothing to do with the patient actually healing." Medicine, indeed, has a science of sorts, but a puny unworkable philosophy of health. Outside of emergency and heroic life saving measures, medi­cine has even been deadly at times. Not so with chiropractic. I will be speaking at the World Federa­tion of Chiropractic in Montreal in April, 2009. Please come hear what NET science through The O.N.E. Research Foundation has provided us, and learn what other top-notch chiropractic researchers in the vari­ous colleges have also achieved in other realms. You nuiv contact Dr. Scott Walker at N.E.T.. Inc., 5651 Palmer Way. Suite C. Carlsbad. CA 92010, by calling 1-X00-XHX-4638. email ing milkerojjice(w,ne/min(lbo(ly.coin, or visiting www.netmindhody.com. EZS