What is Mindbody Healing?

The evidence that the mind--our conscious and subconscious emotions and thought patterns--have an impact on the physical body is mounting. Some would say it's indisputable.

In her book, Mind Over Medicine, Lissa Rankin, MD talks about the controlled studies that have proven the placebo effect in drug trials for more than 50 years. What is the placebo effect? It's the healing that can occur based on the expectation and belief that we will be healed, without the benefit of an active ingredient or drug. It's the healing power of the mind.

Dr. Joe Dispenza describes habits of the mind as being primary in maintaining chronic health conditions in his books including, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and Becoming Supernatural.

Bruce Lipton, PhD describes the Biology of Belief in his book of the same name. What we believe is reflected in our health, the very function of our cells. And Candace Pert, PhD, backed that up with research that shows that every cell in the body has receptors for the Molecules of Emotion (also the title of her seminal book), and that cellular function is impacted by the emotional chemistry coursing through our bodies.

Dawson Church wrote The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention to elucidate the impact our thoughts, emotions and beliefs have on the expression of our genes. Yes, our psyche exerts control over our health, even down to the genetic level, by affecting which genes are on or off.

There is a whole new field of science called PsychoNeuroImmunology (PNI) that studies the connection of the psyche (our thoughts and feelings) to the function of the nervous system, the immune system and even the endocrine system.

The Innate Healing Power of the Body

And underlying all of this is the understanding that the body has the ability to heal itself. At one point in your life you trusted this implicitly, but when your condition became chronic, you may have started to wonder: why is my body broken? Why am I stuck in this state? Why isn't healing happening for me this time?

Another important concept is the relationship between stress and healing. Put simply, when you are in a stress response, you are not healing. Dr. Rankin estimates that the average person experiences 50-200 stress responses per day. For the person with a chronic health condition, it may be many times that.

What creates the stress? Stressful thoughts, unreasonable expectations, negative belief systems, unresolved painful emotions, compulsive behaviors, need for perfection or control, feeling anxious, fearful, powerless, helpless, insignificant, guilty, ashamed, over-responsible, burdened, or not accepting what is. Plus all the stresses associates with relationships, work, finances, parenting or caregiving.

The point is that when you are ill, you need optimal healing faculties. Therefore, to accelerate healing we need to resolve all the conscious and subconscious sources of stress.

How does MAP enable Mindbody healing?

So, when we talk about mindbody healing through neural retraining, we are talking about unraveling the conscious and subconscious sources of stress that are preventing your recovery through a set of sessions with a practitioner.

The MAP Method is an advanced method of neural retraining that can be done at a distance, usually over Zoom videoconference. It is the latest energy psychology technique that builds on modalities from the 1980s and 90s such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

As the next generation of these methods, it is gentler, faster and doesn't require bilateral stimulation or tapping on acupressure points. The brain takes care of all of that itself, quickly and efficiently. With the MAP Method we utilize the brain's natural ability to heal itself by harnessing the power of the subconscious mind.

Each MAP session is organized around a specific topic. The client is prompted to focus on a specific memory or sensation while in a relaxed meditative state. As the practitioner begins to offer verbal instructions to the client's subconscious, the mind begins to reveal its programming through images, feelings, words, memories, and sensations.

After a few minutes, the client describes what came up in their mind, and another round of instructions is given based on that feedback. This continues until the emotional intensity of the memory is greatly reduced or neutralized. The process is gentle and very easy, yet the results are often quite powerful.

It's important to note that the client's subconscious mind is in control of the session, and sets a safe pace. The rewiring happens in the session, therefore there's no need to practice scripts or affirmations. Progress is very individual, but it generally takes about 4-6 sessions to begin to see improvements on a physical level, though emotional and mental shifts are usually noted within the first 3 sessions. Individuals with a significant trauma history or who are very sensitive may take longer.

What Kind of Conditions Can Be Improved?

I've recorded many Flourish with Neural Retraining podcast episodes with my clients, some of whom are practitioners, about the healing they've observed in themselves and in their patients. You can listen to episodes about everything from high blood pressure (episode 44), thyroid health (episodes 49 and 53), food sensitivities (episode 38 and 53), COVID Long (episode 45),  chronic pain and autoimmune disease (episode 40), MCAS and immune dysregulation (episode 47), to cancer (episode 42) and more.

In episode 33, functional medicine practitioner, Cathy Moore, talks about how the MAP Method differs from other techniques that work with the brain. In episode 36 we hear from Dr. Kelly Halderman about how the MAP Method was effective for chronic fatigue, skin issues, and other health concerns and why she finds it a gentle yet powerful technique. She was so convinced of its efficacy that she included it in The Thyroid Debacle, a book she was writing at the time with Dr. Eric Balcavage in the chapter on Emotional Fitness.

Learn More

• Learn more about the MAP Method of advanced neural retraining.
• Try a free course about MAP or see all the MAP Programs.
• Find out how we use the MAP Method to retrain the brain for Sensitivities.
• Listen to the Thyroid Answers podcast with Drs. Balcavage and Halderman about the MAP Method for thyroid health.