The North American Institute of Neurotherapy

NeuroTherapy Training FAQ

1. What is the theoretical basis of NeuroTherapy Training?
2. What is the origin of NeuroTherapy Training?
3. What is the nature of a NeuroTherapy Training session?
4. Out of what vision did NeuroTherapy Training evolve?
5. What are neurological tools?
6. Describe NeuroTherapy Training in relation to models on which methods of psychotherapy, including those using hypnosis, are based.
7. I am not trained or working as a therapeutic professional but I desire to enter a therapeutic profession to help others. Why should I choose NeuroTherapy Training over other ways of offering people help?
8. I am a practicing therapist, why would I want to study a method based on this model or add this method to a psychotherapy or hypnotherapy approach I am currently using? Could this help me increase the number of clients I see?
9. I want to learn the most up-to-date mental training method but I feel it is important to understand the other methods as well.
10. I work as a massage therapist, physical therapist, chiropractor, etc. How could training as a NeuroTherapy Specialist enhance my work and ability to reach clients?
11. I have metaphysical inclinations or interests. NeuroTherapy Training teaches a clinical or scientifically based language and approach. How does it reflect the wisdom of the ages?
12. I desire to help people facing the challenge of diseases such as AIDS & cancer. The mind plays a role in health and disease. Would NeuroTherapy Training be my best choice to develop tools for this goal?

What is the theoretical basis of NeuroTherapy Training?
Differing from earlier models of psychotherapy analytical, behavioral and cognitive, NeuroTherapy Training is based on the emerging neurological model. This model for therapeutic methods is based on the primary understanding: We are as we are because of the inner working of the brain and body

What is the origin of NeuroTherapy Training?
Evolved out of information from the neurological sciences about the brain and how the brain interacts with the body. Originated out of the need to teach people to use their minds more effectively to dissipate the physical chemical reactions that cause emotion. Originated out of the need to teach people to use their minds in scientifically provable ways to boost immune responses and improve healing. It is truly a mind-body method. (The physical and chemical basis of fear diminishes immune responses. People with cancer, AIDS or other life threatening illnesses do not have the luxury of time to work through each individual stimulus for their emotions.)

What is the nature of a NeuroTherapy Training session?
Aligned with scientific understanding about the mind and body and mind-body interaction. Unlike other psychotherapies, the focus is on the processes of stress and emotion in the body not the stimuli causing them (what you actually experience in your body, not what triggers those body reactions). Negative emotion is referred to as a set of physical chemical reactions that are damaging to the organism.

Nature of sessions Sessions involve two processes, teaching and doing mental work Teaching: Making the person their own therapist Each session involves teaching clients in a simple and visually illustrated way about such things as: the mind and the scientific basis of it's interaction with the body, the nature of emotion as a physical and chemical process, the nature of the concentrated state and about the effects of the powerful neurological tools used in sessions that train the brain to dissipate the physical and chemical reactions of emotion, tools such as SUBVERBAL SHIFTING (a registered trademark of the North American Institute of Clinical Therapy) Doing mental work: Training the brain This differs from hypnotherapy other approaches using a concentrated mental state (hypnosis). Specific change is not triggered through suggestion and visualization. Each session involves being guided by the specialist into a concentrated mental state and through a series of powerful mental exercises. These mental exercises are used to dissipate the physical and chemical reactions that underlie negative emotions. The client, further, learns to train their brains to respond in ways that can manage pain and improve immune responses.

Length of Therapy The focus is on self control, teaching people a self-generated mental training approach. Further, the focus is on managing the physical and chemical processes of emotion not on the myriad of constantly changing stimuli that trigger those responses. Change happens faster and more dramatically than therapies that guide a person either consciously or using an altered mental state to work on each individual stimulus for their emotional responses. When clients leave therapy, they have tools to use daily for ongoing improvement throughout their lives.

Out of what vision did NeuroTherapy Training evolve?
In the late 1970s, as the team of Henry Snyder and Marilyn Michael out of Seattle, Washington began developing NeuroTherapy Training They were clearly aware of the paradigm shift occurring in the systems of society. Systems built on older knowledge or ways of thinking needed to evolve.

Throughout the twentieth century, the field of psychology went through changes from analytical to behavioral to cognitive ways of helping people. But the underlying system was still built on making change through thought and understanding. However, the neurological sciences were showing that at the basis of individual thoughts were physical and chemical processes. There was a physiology of thought and emotion.

Reflecting a critical component of the larger paradigm shift, NeuroTherapy Training moved from focusing on the structure of peoples emotional lives to a focus on the physical and chemical processes underlying emotion. Utilizing a modern mental training method, NeuroTherapy Training focuses on potentials of a concentrated state of mind.

NeuroTherapy Training evolved as a way of using a concentrated state of mind that helps people better manage the process or physiology of emotion and not merely focus on individual emotional stimuli. It offers a way of training people using neurological tools, new ways of stimulating the hardware of the brain to respond in ways that sustain healthier states of mind and body thus, healthier feelings and behaviors. But-it goes beyond. In this time in history when it has become clear that states of mind effect states of body, it offers people a scientifically based way to play a more active mental role in the healing picture. It is truly a mind-body method.

What are neurological tools?
Neurological tools are the future of psychotherapy. The signature neurological tool of NeuroTherapy Training is called SUBVERBAL SHIFTING. As part of this training, students receive the complete SUBVERBAL SHIFTING Training Package, a revolutionary way for therapeutic professionals to "train the hardware of the brain" to dissipate the damaging physical and chemical basis of negative emotions. It is, further, a way of offering to those being helped, a powerful daily program of more healthful management of the physical and chemical basis of negative emotions. SUBVERBAL SHIFTING TRAINING PACKAGE

Describe NeuroTherapy Training in relation to models on which methods of psychotherapy, including those using hypnosis, are based.
There are different ways of helping people better manage their psychological weaknesses or symptoms. The four basic ways are each based on a therapeutic model or underlying belief system as defined below:

Analytical model: This therapeutic model is based on the belief we are as we are because of deep-seated anxieties and underlying conflicts emerging from the events of our lives. Methods based on the analytical model would be those involving some form of age regression or analysis of people's life events or memories, and involving cathartic release of emotions surrounding the events or memories of focus. Metaphysically oriented methods may use past life regression to examine the events of supposed lives other than the current one. If a concentrated mental state (hypnosis) is used, its primary purpose is to facilitate that regression and cathartic release of emotion.

Behavioral model: This model is based on the belief we are as we are because of our behaviors. Problems in life are seen to emerge because of ineffective or inappropriate behaviors. Methods based on the behavioral model attempt to train people in new, more effective, behaviors. If a concentrated mental state (hypnosis) is used the method is one of attempting to reprogram the mind using suggestions and directed visualizations while a person is concentrating.

Cognitive model: This model is based on the belief we are as we are because of how we perceive our lives and circumstances. Methods based on the cognitive model focus on reframing specific interactions and perceptions. If a concentrated mental state (hypnosis) is used, use of suggestion and directed visualization occur to facilitate the reframing. A current approach based on the cognitive model is neurolinguistic programming or NLP.

Neurological model--the basis of NeuroTherapy Training: This model is based in the most current knowledge emerging from the neurological sciences. Though people are certainly shaped by many factors, the belief system behind the neurological model is that we are as we are because of the innerworking of the mind and body. Going further, it is based in the realization that mental activities such as thought and emotion have at their basis, physical and chemical reactions. Scientists have shown that negative emotion, for example, is a set of physical and chemical reactions that, if felt for long periods, can damage the body. NeuroTherapy Training, which is based on the neurological model, teaches people to use a mental training method to improve the working of the mind and body. This method of mental training, more specifically, teaches people to better manage the physical and chemical reactions that cause negative emotions. Their responses to memories, their behaviors and how they perceive things change because the processes in the body underlying them change.

I am not trained or working as a therapeutic professional but I desire to enter a therapeutic profession to help others. Why should I choose NeuroTherapy Training over other ways of offering people help?
NeuroTherapy Training has been described as taking mental training into the future. Not only is it the most modern, scientifically based mind-body method, professionals using this approach are seen in a new way. You are certified through this training as a NeuroTherapy Specialist. Over the years, medical professionals have viewed NeuroTherapy Specialists as those working in the field of psychology, in the same manner that physical therapists are seen as those working in the field of medicine. The field of psychology is changing. Traditionally, counselors have needed to understand all dimensions of the varied human emotions and how they evolve. The need exists for a new breed of professional, more of a teacher and coach, someone who can teach people tools to manage their emotional reactions. Your goal as a NeuroTherapy Specialist will be to make people their own therapist, to put tools into their hands. You will be trained in a way of guiding people through the learning process session-by-session. Professional teaching materials will be given to you. You are not merely taught theory that you then have to figure out how to use in sessions with those you see.

I am a practicing therapist, why would I want to study a method based on this model or add this method to a psychotherapy or hypnotherapy approach I am currently using? Could this help me increase the number of clients I see?
Methods based on earlier models focus on specific emotions and behaviors or, more correctly, the triggers for emotions and behaviors. NeuroTherapy Training teaches a person to better manage the physical and chemical reactions that are stimulated by certain memories or incidents. The person learns a daily routine enabling them to manage the eruption of emotion in the body. By managing their reactions to emotional stimuli, people can control the damaging effects from negative emotions rather than working on one at a time. Further, it does not matter if the emotion is triggered by a memory from the past or by a person standing in front of them. For practicing therapists, adding NeuroTherapy Training to their work gives them the missing link in helping people manage unhealthy emotions and behaviors. Further, it gives therapists a powerful way of helping those facing the challenge of disease.

I want to learn the most up-to-date mental training method but I feel it is important to understand the other methods as well.
Training as a NeuroTherapy Specialist first trains you to professionally use the mental training framework. The professional approach, unique to this training, teaches you a modern method of guiding someone into, sustain and use a concentrated mental state therapeutically. You will learn about other mental training approaches, such as hypnotherapy, that are based on the three earlier described psychotherapeutic models, analytical, behavioral and cognitive.

I work as a massage therapist, physical therapist, chiropractor, etc. How could training as a NeuroTherapy Specialist enhance my work and ability to reach clients?
You, more than others, understand the mind-body connection. Professionals who work with the body clearly see how people's emotions affect their physical bodies. You may help your client release all tension, even clear pathways of energy, but if they spend the rest of the week emotionally upset, the physical tension that is part of their emotional responses will erode the good work that was done. Combining NeuroTherapy Training with the other tools you are using enables your clients to dissipate, daily, the physical and chemical reactions of negative emotions. They will more effectively sustain the positive physical changes from the work they are receiving from you.

I have metaphysical inclinations or interests. NeuroTherapy Training teaches a clinical or scientifically based language and approach. How does it reflect the wisdom of the ages?
Consider the statement, At the basis of all our problems is fear. As one works toward a greater spiritual awareness and toward spiritual growth, every enlightened leader from Buddha to Jesus, to more current revered individuals, speak to our limitations emerging from conceptions of the conscious mind--negative emotions. Many metaphysical practitioners have added NeuroTherapy Training to their tools not only because it gives people powerful tools for managing those limitations, it greatly improves the mind's ability to use the concentrated/meditative/prayer state effectively. Further, it gives the metaphysically based or inclined professional a very clinical language which can help them reach larger numbers of people who could benefit from the wisdom of the ages. Trained as a NeuroTherapy Specialist, a person could sit down with the most pragmatic medical doctors and make them very comfortable with why their patients who are struggling with a seemingly physically based disease could benefit greatly from mental training.

I desire to help people facing the challenge of diseases such as AIDS & cancer. The mind plays a role in health and disease. Would NeuroTherapy Training be my best choice to develop tools for this goal?
NeuroTherapy Training is based on current scientific knowledge about the mind-body connection. Underlying negative emotions are physical and chemical reactions. Science has proven that sustaining negative emotions such as fear, anger and depression actually disrupts healthy immune responses and can stimulate viral activity. People facing the challenge of disease need relief from psychological pain, but they also need more. NeuroTherapy Training offers them powerful mental tools to keep emotion from disrupting healthy immune responses. It enables a person to play a more active role in the healing process.