neuro-emotional technique (NET)

netMany people experience unresolved or negative emotion problems that prevent them enjoying life fully. These limitations may occur in response to a particular situation or the possibility of one. They can result in unhealthy aversions, self-sabotaging behaviours, destructive tendencies and could lead to stress associated health problems.

Emotional stress can also trigger the startle reflex (shoulders up), which if chronic could lead to a variety of physical problems such as shoulder and neck tension. We see a lot of people visiting the clinic with physical complaints that appear to have unresolved emotional issues having an adverse effect on other aspects of their health. We us NET to discover and help you resolve these stuck emotional patterns. Often people who have been through the NET process report feeling like a burden has been lifted.

stressOur brains seem programmed to remember negative emotional experiences more easily than positive ones. While in the short term these can be useful in avoiding some kind of danger, they can outlive their usefulness. Negative emotions are generally stored in the deeper, subconscious parts of the right brain. This is the part of the brain that acts like a sponge when we are younger. It tends to associate a negative emotional response with particular features of something. So for example as a child we may be bitten by a dog and as an adult we may be scared of dogs but also have a fear response when we are subtly threatened or to something the same colour, texture, loud noise or other association. It’s like we’ve got an alarm constantly ringing a way. These learnt emotion responses colour our view of things. Some of these experiences can in some cases appear quite trivial, but like the first stone that rolls to start an avalanche, they may come to affect our lives in profound ways.

There are various ways to help overcome these fears and free ourselves from the habitual emotional responses that colour our lives and limit our potential enjoyment. Neurological research has discovered pathways in the nervous system which can be used to help turn down these over active negative emotional areas.

The basic mechanism is that the front part of the right brain, which only matures in our early twenties, is able to switch off these negative emotions. Until these areas mature, we are vulnerable to these emotional habitual responses. These areas only mature with use. When we choose to learn to use these areas of the brain we can start to become free of our negative emotional habits and become a parent to our younger, more vulnerable self.

faceThe front right part of the brain has an important role in attention. It also has a relatively simple language ability, which involves the emotional vocabulary. Research has found that paying attention to the emotion and naming them can turn down the activity in the negative emotional areas of the brain. It can turn off the alarm. A note of caution – this attention is looking at them in a way so you are not claiming the emotions as yourself.

The left side of the brain is involved in intention. It appears that if there is a conflict between the left brain intentions (i.e. your goals and desires) and the right brain (emotional memory areas), this causes problems. My interpretation of how Neuro-Emotional Technique (NET) works is that by engaging the attention, labelling the emotion and helping facilitate a more relaxed state, NET helps your brain to resolve the problem.

For an Neuro-Emotional Technique session with Dr Louis Westerbeek Bsc (Psych), MSc, BSc (Chiro), DC, CCEP, CAPN, Doctor of Chiropractic please contact the clinic. We recommend you fill out our New Patient Questionnaires as fully as possible so we have a more complete view of your overall health (some of the questions may not appear entirely relevant – but do your best with the rest).

Louis has attended basic training in NET and attended many hundreds of hours of post-graduate lectures on neurology.