American Thought Leaders - Treating the Root, Not Just the Symptoms: The Power of Integrative Medicine | Dr. Daniel Monti

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Dr. Daniel Monti is the founding chair of the first integrative medicine department at an American medical university.Rather than treating symptoms in isolation, integrative medicine takes a holistic approach to health, combining conventional Western medicine with mind-body therapies, nutritional medicine, and traditional practices such as acupuncture and herbal medicine.“Integrative medicine,” Monti told me, “has become a subspecialty of medicine with its own board certification. ... To become an integrative medicine doctor, you have to first do your residency in something like internal medicine, neurology, OBGYN, and then do a fellowship in integrative medicine.”Monti, who holds board certifications in both psychiatry/neurology and holistic/integrative medicine, said that integrative physicians “take a deep dive into whole-person health and understanding who the person is.” They look, for example, at genomics, the patient’s microbiome, and maximal oxygen consumption.A powerful technique Monti studied in depth is the neuro-emotional technique (NET), developed in the 1980s. It’s a mind-body therapy designed to release emotional stress from within the body. And through advanced brain scans, they can see how the brain changes after applying the technique to alleviate distress.NET merges principles from conventional medicine with traditional Chinese medicine and psychology, he says. The goal is to “get at what is underneath the issue that’s bothering the person. ... Most of the time I’m experiencing a block in my life in some way. And then we have to kind of figure out what the life experiences were that are contributing to that present-day block.”During the interview, Monti used me as a test subject to demonstrate the integrative medicine technique.We also discuss additional integrative medicine therapies, such as vitamin infusions and stress-reduction treatments. We also dive into a recent study into a powerful antioxidant’s power to benefit Parkinson’s patients.Monti is the founder and CEO of the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health and chair of the Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University. He’s the co-author of “Brain Weaver” and “Tapestry of Health.”He’s also the host of “House Call with Dr. Dan Monti.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

When I notice a pattern in somebody or somebody says, I find that with this area of life, I always hit a wall, then I say, well, let's go explore. Today I sit down with Dr. Daniel Monti to explore his unique approach to integrative medicine, including a method used to treat psychological trauma known as the neuroemotional technique. We have a unique scanner.

There's less than three dozen in the country. And this has allowed us to really see in the brain what happens when you get rid of distress. But this conversation doesn't stay theoretical. Dr. Monti demonstrates the method in real time on me. I deserve to sleep six hours a night. This, what is, how is this happening?

Beyond the demonstration, we discussed the deeper science behind reconciling human emotions to heal trauma and improve overall well-being. We've published three studies on this, and what we've seen is that the anicidal cystin improves the functional connectivity in the brain. I think that more of the science. of the scientific community. We'll see it this time. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kelek. Dr. Daniel Monti, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. It's a thrilled to be here with you and in honor. So you have a fascinating new study that is

actually, you're demonstrating increased connectivity in the brain for Parkinson's patients. Through kind of a simple method. I mean, tell me what you found. So this is our third study on a molecule called anacetylcysteine or neck for short. And this is a powerful antioxidant. It's also used as a medication in the emergency room in the hospital for people who take a Tylenol overdose. It actually protects the liver. So we know that it does a lot of different things. But the important thing for us is that it's a precursor to something called glutathione. Now, why this is important is because glutathione protects the brain when there's oxidative damage

or oxidative stress. And we lose it as we age, and when we get sick, we lose it even more. So we want to have a way to efficiently increase glutathione in the brain, particularly when we have a neurodegenerative disorder such as Parkinson's disease. And so we hypothesized early on that giving... infused enacetyl cysteine along with oral, would increase glutathione, and actually have a positive impact on Parkinson's disease. We've published three studies on this, and we look at brain scans in all of them. And what we've seen is that the nacetyl cysteine increases the efficiency of dopamine

in the brain, which is the neurotransmitter or chemical that gets lost in Parkinson's disease and causes all of those symptoms. And our most recent studies shows that it improves the way the brain connects to itself or talks to itself, the functional connectivity in the brain. And this is really exciting because what we consistently see with all of our brain scan studies is that that correlates with improvements in function

and how the person feels. So it's exciting. And in this last study that we got published in a very good journal for Parkinson's. disease, I think that more of the scientific community, particularly neurologists who treat Parkinson's disease, will see it this time. And you know, this strikes me as something that can also work in conjunction with other treatments. Always.

Yeah. You know, that's part of integrative medicine, and we're always trying to push the bounds of what we understand in innovative treatments in integrative medicine. And so we're always thinking about how do we add value to what's out there. So in this study, people who were on part of the research. Parkinson's medications, which was all of them, stayed on their Parkinson's medications. But to be in the study, you couldn't have changes in your Parkinson's medications for a period of time.

And so in both the control group and in the NAC or NAC group, people were on their Parkinson's medications, but if they got the NAC, they did better. Their brain came alive in a way that wasn't happening before, and they felt this subjectively. And we even videotaped a couple of the patients in this study. One was a lawyer who basically people said it was a miracle, how different she looked and acted and functioned. And while not everybody has that reaction, to even have some people do that well is really encouraging with a disease that doesn't have many options to really improve.

What puts you on to this in the first place? Integrative medicine, one of our tools is diet, nutrition, nutrients, natural molecules. And I was aware of oxidative damage being a problem in Parkinson's disease. So the studies that I'm involved with in our department and on our team are always brain-related because that's where my training is. And so I wanted to really think about how can we improve that oxidative stress? because in a way, that's part of the mechanism behind the destruction of the dopaminergic cells. It isn't the only mechanism, and we don't fully understand Parkinson's disease. But I thought if we could target this one thing and do it really well, could it have a good impact on patients?

And so far, it is. So let's go back now. Okay, so integrative medicine, there's a lot of people that might not even understand what that is. And I might add that you're actually the chair or the dean of an Integrative Medicine department at a university, which is not a common type of department at university. So just tell me a little bit about what it is and how you got to be doing what you're doing.

Sure. So the word integrative is the problem, because it gets used in lots of ways, integrative health, integrative approaches. But integrative medicine has become an actual subspecialty of medicine with its own. board certification. So to become an integrative medicine doctor, you have to first do your residency in something like internal medicine, neurology, OBGYN, and then do a fellowship in integrative

medicine. We have a fellowship at Jefferson where I work. And that fellowship allows you to sit for the board and become board certified in integrative medicine. So what is it? Like all new specialties are all specialties that were added to medicine, you're adding value in some way with how you assess and treat problems. For us, we do a lot of innovative testing to look at the functionality of a person that goes beyond what you would normally get in a primary care office, for example. Not that what happens in the primary care office is bad, it's great. My colleagues in primary care are putting on fires all day.

But a lot of times people hit a wall with that approach in their health and wellness, either because they want to become more well when they're doing relatively okay, or getting over an illness just isn't happening. They only could get so far. So how we address the problem, assess the problem is one thing. And then what are our tools to add to the medical care that they're getting? And so we're always pushing the bounds of what that is. in nutrition, that's one of the things we're the experts on. So things that people consider

lifestyle medicine, longevity medicines, such as hormonal balances, hormone replacement therapies even. But when it comes to the brain, targeted nutrients are something that I have a big interest in. And an acetylcystine is a precursor to a really important one, as I said, glutathione. So speaking of lifestyle medicine, America now has new dietary guidelines, a so-called flipped pyramid of food, eat real food is become a slogan. How do you react to that? In my field, we've been flipping that pyramid for a while. And eating real food has been an important concept in integrative medicine and integrative health. All of the evidence out there continuously points to a dietary pattern that is going to increase health and prolong life

or one that's going to take things in the opposite direction. All of the ultra-processed foods that are so common and easy to obtain really put things in the wrong direction. We need to eat food, and so I'm glad there's an emphasis on doing so. When I think of integrative medicine, and I know a number of practitioners, very often there's some sort of like vitamin infusions that are a common part of, that's what I've heard as like a common type of treatment. but there's actually kind of a range of things that you do, right?

And as you mentioned, these are additions to some other types of treatment that are happening. But can you give me a picture of kind of the range of possibilities that exist from, I guess, the arsenal of an integrative medicine doctor? Yes. And you're right. We do sometimes use vitamin infusions. Oftentimes when people have had chronic illness or the gut has shut down, they need a recharge. And you need to bypass the gut.

And so we do different types of micronutrient infusions. It was actually what was behind my idea to use the knack or an acetyl cysteine for Parkinson's because we do infusions of glutathione. It's just that it's not super efficient at crossing the blood-brain barrier, which is why we came up with the idea of an acetyl-sysetine. So that has its role. One of the programs that I'm still clinically involved with is our executive health program. We have Fortune 500 companies that send their C-suite in, but lots of individuals just sign up for it because they want that snapshot of their health.

And so what are we doing differently? One of the things we're doing is we're really taking a deep dive into whole person health and understanding who the person is. But beyond that, we look at things like genomics, how the gut is working. The microbiome, the microbiome is critical and how we make it more efficient if there's dysbiosis. And looking at things like V-O-2 max, which gives an idea of how the person's fitness level is in a way and a great predictor of longevity. And so all of these different things that are in the scientific literature, we pull together in the assessment along with standard labs, advanced labs, and also looking at the person's hormonal profile. As people age, they lose the hormones. And replacing hormones used to be vilified.

We did it in integrative medicine and now the FDA. The FDA commissioner recently lifted the black box warning on giving women estrogen because actually it was hurting many women to not have that available. And so as we look at the arsenal, there's the lifestyle arsenal of diet, nutrition, stress reduction. We have many innovative stress reduction therapies, one we've recently published on that I'll get into in a moment. Also things that fall under what people think of as a lot.

like longevity, things like the hormone replacement that I mentioned, or hormonal balancing in other ways. And I think that it's important to keep in mind that we're always thinking about how do we integrate that with the rest of the medical plan that the person is on. And so I might have somebody come through our executive health program. They get a total body on our eye screen, VO2 max, an exercise stress test, basic labs, history and physical exam, functional neurological exam sometimes, upon what the person needs. Then we have all of that information. And as I think of some of the people I just recently had, I'm always balancing their diet and nutrition. Some of them really are depleted and need targeted nutrients and sometimes I beat nutrients. Then there's people who their

hormones are out of whack. And so we'll do some hormonal balancing. Sometimes people are neurologically recovering. They've had a head injury in the past and they're still feeling a little bit fuzzy in some way. I might use hyperbaric oxygen treatment. So it all really depends upon who the person is, and there's a really wide range of things that we do for them. When it comes to the stress reduction aspect, so something I do regularly, which has been kind of a bit of a godsend for me

as regular meditation and slow motion exercises and tied in with kind of a mental state, right? Is this part of what you do? Yes, because we know those things change the brain. A big thing that we do is not only offer those programs, but study them. So we've studied and published brain scan studies. We have Dr. Newberg on our brain imaging team, who is one of the gurus in doing that. And we've shown how the brain changes when you do those things.

In fact, one of our videos, I'm in the machine listening to my own meditation, chugong-based music, and how it changes my brain versus when I'm listening. to, they played the financial news of the day when things were going a little bit haywire. And then they put on my music and I went into meditation mode. My brain is completely different. The stress areas of my brain are completely different. And we know that when you do this in a sustained way, that you get sustained changes in the brain.

And if it's happening in the brain, it's happening in the rest of the body. Because the state of the brain reflects everything in the body. the autonomic nervous system. And then that has tentacles that reach all the way to the immune system. So how we weather life has a lot to do with how we weather stress. And these techniques like you're talking about are critical. One of the things that was important to me to study a little bit more and understand a little bit more is, what about the internal stressors that are continually

a form of stress because they get re-triggered by the environment. And what do we do about those? Because we can always try to shut down the autonomic nervous system response to them by doing breathing and meditating. But another approach along with that would be to sort of get at the root of some of the ones that are inside of us versus the external stressors. External stressors are going to happen all the time. But life experiences that get triggered by the environment and create a stress response inside, sometimes when you don't even know it, those are the ones that it was important for me to study a solution for.

And you're talking about dealing with trauma, basically, right? Is that, do I, am I understanding you right here? So trauma for sure, right? But there's like big T trauma, a combat veteran who, you know, watching. lives and under tremendous hardship and whose own life is being threatened all of the time. That could be a big T trauma. But then there's smaller traumas that we call it little T traumas that basically are stressors, their experiences in life that just were not able to get reconciled at the time they were occurring. And so they get laid down in the emotional part of the brain,

memory-wise. And so when we're reminded. of them in some way or we're in a situation that's just similar enough in some way, has enough of a familiarity to it, then the nervous system goes into the same survival mode it was in when we experienced it and didn't quite have a way of reconciling it in a healthier way. And so this happens all the time. A big group of people that we looked at were cancer survivors, up to a third of cancer survivors can actually tell you that they have some memory of a cancer-related experience. Maybe it was the moment of diagnosis, which is very life-threatening, obviously, right?

Where if they think about it, on a scale of zero to ten for distress with zero being neutral, 10 being really distressing, they put it at a seven or greater, usually a 10. And when I would go to cancer survivor meetings, that one-third to 40 percent of the the room always raised their hand. If I said, if you think about it, do you have one of those? Now what people don't realize is if they have something that when they think about it is that it's that distressing, that means it's wreaking havoc lots of times throughout life because there's going to be reminders that you're not even aware of.

We're subconsciously because we're taking in things all the time in our environment reacting to things that we don't even know we're reacting to. So if there's an unresolved event that's kind of a big event, and we get cues, reminders, it can affect our behavior, and it affects our quality of life. Sometimes in a really overt way, I think of somebody in my study, for example, who was a breast cancer survivor. When she would get that notice in the mail,

time for your yearly mammogram, as soon as she saw the hospital logo, put it under the pile, that made her disappointments. It actually could have been harmful for her overall well-being that she was in that state. And that's what happens. We unconsciously are avoiding things. And we're navigating the world in a way that isn't as good as it could be because there are scripts related to these events going on out of our awareness all the time. And so when I notice a pattern in somebody or somebody says, you know,

I find that with this area of life, I always hit a wall. Then I say, well, let's go explore with this intervention that we've studied and published on to see if there's a life experience that we can help you to reconcile so that you can have a better quality of life. And the intervention that we've studied is called the neuroemotional technique. We've published three papers. I mentioned cancer survivors. in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship, which is a National Cancer Institute journal and the best

survivorship journal in the world. And then most recently, we published on a very different group of people, women who were struggling with chronic pelvic pain. And we hypothesized that if we could help them deal with some of the stressors in their life, big stressors, that it could help them navigate the pain better. And that was the case. And how the brain navigated pain and pain perceptions changed. for a lot of these women. And we published that in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

But I think that the important thing, like all of my studies, because it's just my focus, is we show changes in the brain. So we have really amazing equipment. Part of my department is the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health in honor of Bernie Marcus, who actually gave us a tremendous amount of support to develop what we are and who we are. For those who don't know, he was one of the three co-founders of Home Depot, and a believer in the integrative model of care. And we have a unique scanner. There's less than three dozen in the country,

where we can look at functional activity in the brain in a really unique and comprehensive way. And this has allowed us to really see in the brain what happens when you get rid of distress. And that's what the neuroemotional technique does. So what exactly do you do for this? I mean, I've heard about it, but I don't actually, I can't visualize it. Well, maybe I'll do a demo with you, but basically you're trying to get at what is underneath

the issue that's bothering the person. I mean, sometimes it's as overt as I have this memory of my cancer experience and it still bothers me. But most of the time, it's not that easy when it comes in the door. Most of the time it's I'm experiencing a block in my life in some way and then we have to kind of figure out what the life experiences, life experience or experiences were that are contributing to that present day block that the person is experiencing. This makes me think of something in my own life. I think I have a pretty charmed less life. But I do notice that what you would call sleep hygiene, my sleep hygiene is poor. And no matter what I kind of try to do to fix that, I might fix it for a few days,

but it always goes back to normal. So is this the kind of thing you're talking about? Absolutely. So I can't know for sure without starting to delve into it a little more if there is previous life experiences, but I'm guessing there is from something like that. because you know what you want to be doing, but you end up not doing it. The block is you're not doing for yourself

what you want to be doing. And that's usually an indicator that there's something that the neuroemotional technique can help address. So what do you do? Okay, I'll show you. First of all, in our study, to assess if the person had autonomic nervous system reactivity.

So that's, you know, we have two kind of main branches of the automatic or autonomic nervous system, fighter flight, which is sympathetic nervous system, and restoration and recuperation. What happens when we are dealing with distress is fight or flight gets activated. And so you can measure that. And that's actually what the polygraph was all about when people would say something that they knew to be untrue, the autonomic nervous system would react. Those were the j-j-j-j-j-j-j-lines that was measuring, heart rate and blood pressure, and the heat given off of skin

and muscle tension and all of those kinds of things. In our study, we would also see that when they thought about the distressing script, say it was the cancer survivors, you would see those same kinds of lines. And then in the functional MRI scanner, we would see the brain light up in characteristic ways, that we knew that the person was distressed. So since we don't have all of that fancy equipment, I kind of gauge the muscle tension. I have a way that I like to do it.

And it helps me to sort of know if you're having autonomic nervous system reactivity. You have it before you think, which is why it's a good way of gauging what's going on. The thing that's kind of unusual about the technique and really puts it in the integrative medicine realm is that it's a merging of principles in conventional medicine and even psychology, psychiatry, along with traditional Chinese medicine,

because what we try to line up are the thoughts, emotions, and energetic pattern of that life experience. And in doing so, we find that reconciliation is much more efficient than any other technique I know of. And that's why it was important for me to study it and look at brain scans So we can see if there's anything to your sleep hygiene that might have to do with some life experiences that your brain needs to reconcile. What percentage of your practice would you say is applying this neuro-emotional technique? If we had the bandwidth, we would get every person we saw to do it. Because I feel like everybody has things. And we all would just benefit from reconciling.

We get everybody to meditate. We get everybody to look at their diet. We get everybody to do the things that are easy to do on your own. This intervention requires somebody to do it with you because your unconscious will whittle away from you otherwise. Right. Well, all right. Let's give it a shot.

Okay. I have no idea what to expect here, but let's do it. Me neither. Every session is different. So I just sort of follow your physiology as you'll see. What I'm going to do is I want to make sure I understand the problem first. And so the problem is you don't go to bed when you want to go to bed. Or would you say it differently? I mean, no, roughly, roughly, yes. I mean, in my sort of dream world, right, I would have just a standard amount of sleep every night. And of course I have a kind of a chaotic schedule.

I tend to work a lot, right? And I like that. But the reality is that I almost never, even though my intention would be to go to sleep at a certain time, so I get my full six hours or something like that, right? I will instead just always kind of push it to fatigue somehow. Somehow there's always that extra work. Somehow there's always some good excuse. But when I look back at it, in all honesty, there's something else. I feel like there's something else going on.

It's not like an entirely rational process, right? I sense that. But I'm always ending up there. Right. And it's not the worst for getting a bunch of work done, but then again, you're not the most effective in that state either. And so how many, if you could wave a magic wand and you would be doing what you want to be doing,

how many hours of sleep a night would you get? I think like a good solid six hours a night would be. Usually when I get that, I'm good to go. Yes. I want you to get six hours of sleep because I know that it isn't great for you to continually not get the six hours. In fact, you know, most people even need a little more than that. Let's start with six if we're not getting six. But as I was preparing, right, I did notice that there's some sort of chronic inflammation for this talk. Chronic inflammation can come from chronic sleep deprivation, which as we keep learning repeatedly, especially with this sort of Maha-oriented, you know, health administration, chronic inflammation. is a huge problem. It's the root of almost every problem. You know, even Alzheimer's disease has a significant inflammatory component. So you can have a genetic setup for it, but the genes can go one way or another

depending upon the rest of the environment that's acting on those genes. And inflammation is a big one. And sleep is important for regulating inflammation, just like diet and stress reduction are. So I hope that's convinced you to be motivated here. No, no, no, I'm motivated. So what do I do? So I'll walk you through it. It's very simple.

So first of all, I'm going to have you say some statements to see how your nervous system reacts to them. And I'm going to do this, I'm going to test the muscle tension. And so what I'll have you do is lock the elbow like this and hold your arm so that you resist against my pressure. Okay. So, yeah, hold. And I'm just going to touch this point here. So I get a feeling of how your arm reacts.

Hold. Okay. And by the way, I did a study just on this aspect of it to see if I could do this instead of having all the equipment. So I'm okay sleeping six plus hours a night. Say that. I'm okay sleeping six plus hours a night. Okay.

Say this. I deserve to sleep. six plus hours a night. I deserve to sleep six hours a night. Do you notice how you have a hard time keeping it up even in the moment that you're saying it? Do you see that? Yes, I do. I do.

I do. No, no. And this is real. It's not a setup. It's weird, actually. It's just testing that because your muscle tension changes when there's an autonomic nervous system glitch, you know, impulse like that. So keep saying that.

I deserve to. Yeah. Keep saying it for me. I deserve to sleep more than. six hours a night. And you notice how now, when I touch this point, you can say that and it stays strong. So I know I have the right traditional Chinese medicine point here. I'm wondering, like, I'm kind of wondering whether you're not sort of suggesting this to be a little bit, right, as opposed to really happening. Well, I mean, I have to, you have to forgive me. I have this kind

of structurally skeptical disposition. I'm going to use this pinky finger, right? Okay. It's strong now, right? Now, say I deserve to sleep. six hours a night. I deserve to sleep six hours. That's wild. That's okay. Say it now. Okay. I deserve to I deserve to sleep six hours at night. Right. And so just think about my, my tie or something now. Okay. And hold strong. Okay. Hold strong. So you're not changing the amount of pressure you're putting. I can't put more than this, right? I'm pushing as hard as I can with my pinky. Okay, all right. No, no, this is good. I'll say, you know, I'm okay. I deserve sleeping six hours a night.

I deserve to sleep six hours a night. How is this happening? It's not perfect, but, you know, I'm... So normally you would measure this using these devices? So we have all of these ways to sort of like confirm this. This is just a simple thing to make it easy in the office or to make it easy doing a demo, right? And so because this is just the body's... What is it?

Like, I secretly don't think I deserve to sleep six hours of night. I'm so glad you asked. So what there is is there's an incongruency. Okay. Between the emotional part of the brain and the logical knowing part of the brain. Okay. So the logical knowing part of the brain says, yeah, of course I should be getting six plus hours of sleep. But the emotional brain reacts and sends an autonomic signal before the thinking part of the brain can really even be affecting your,

neurology. And that's what creates the weakness? Yes. Okay, interesting. Because the emotional brain sets off that fight or flight part of the nervous system. So as you're saying it, there's a reaction. And that reaction represents an incongruity or incongruence between the knowing part of the brain, your neocortex, and then underneath it is where emotional memories are. And the emotional part of the brain is saying, no. Right? And so there's the two, are in a disagreement and that's where we get this. Okay. Right.

So, and that's why people are like, but, you know, I know I deserve it. I'm like, right, you just don't feel like on some deep emotional circuit level that you deserve it. And so now I use those pulse points to help me get the emotional quality because all of the meridians in traditional Chinese medicine have an emotional quality to them. And I countered, this countered the muscle test, right? So I know that this is involved with the neurophysiology. So now you're bringing in the traditional Chinese medicine aspect. That's fascinating.

Right. And so let's take it there again. So hold strong for me. And I deserve to get six plus hours of sleep. I deserve to get six plus hours. Yes. And so I know that I've got this point here, right? And so this point has to do with feelings of, and I'm just going to say words to see how your physiology responds, but they're all, they all describe this conception governing vessel that this point represents.

So shame, feeling less than or not enough in some way. And so the concept of feeling less than or not enough if you let yourself sleep six plus hours. And so let's step back and let your arm relax a little bit and talk. How would that make sense for you? So, you know, just this is a bit like being on the couch with a, you know, psychoanalyst or something. It's just that you have some other kind of like way to get at the issues. Well, you know, Freud said back in his day, you know, I know there's probably a much more efficient way at getting at issues, but this is the best thing I can come up with for now.

Interesting. He said that? He said that. Oh, fascinating. He knew free association and laying on the couch was inefficient, but that's why he had people come every day for several weeks to try to get at what's going on. Yeah, I'm not as such as huge a fan of Freud as I am a Victor Frankl's approach to doing this stuff. Of course. People after Freud then kept trying to make it better and better and better. Okay, no, fascinating. Okay, so what do we do now?

So so far you've done a kind of diagnosis. You figured out there's something about being less than. So the idea of like, you know, it creates a kind of a little bit of a shame-based emotion comes up. You know, that feeling of you're less than or not enough if you don't push yourself and work to the point that you're getting less. You know, getting six plus hours of sleep at night. Like there's some something about that. how would you make sense of it? Well, like what I think you're getting at, okay,

because I'm sort of studying you a little bit of what, and I think like what the message I'm getting from what you've been doing is that somehow I compensate for some sort of feeling of inadequacy by, you know, always sort of pushing myself to complete fatigue, right? Yes, but I'm not asking you to theorize about it. right? I'm asking you how it makes sense for you. Like, you know, for me? Maybe that makes sense. I'm just thinking about it, right? Like, maybe that actually makes sense. I don't know. I don't, I don't feel it acutely.

Right. Right. But that would, that's like, it sort of clicks for you a little bit. Yeah. Okay, sure. So let's try this. Yeah. Okay. Think about what you just said. Think about how that might give you some sense of inadequacy, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so what is the wire because? Why does it make you inadequate to let yourself sleep the six plus hours and not just power through. Like, what's the wire because there? I don't know. I think it's something where, I have to think about this. It's something where I just don't feel like I'm contributing sufficiently.

Okay. And so thinking about that, thinking about that, hold. Yeah. And so the concept of an original time where there was a feeling, of less than or not enough because of not contributing that's sufficiently in some way. And so let's check the concept of conception to age 10 hold strong, conception to age five holds strong, age six holds strong, age seven hold strong,

age eight hold strong. So if we go to age eight, relax your arm, and think about where you were living, what you were doing, what was going on in your life at age eight, right? I don't have a good memory of age eight. Okay, do you remember if you were in six? remember if you were in school or if you definitely was in school see I have a memories of I have memories from age five to six very just very distinct memories and I remember and moving I

think at that time we would have moved this like what is that grade two three four three is yeah yeah so we moved to the suburbs at the time I mean I remember I didn't like the suburb life. Yeah, what did you like about it? How much? The requirement of seem to be, there was seem to be a requirement of a certain type of conformity that I was not, that didn't come naturally to me. What was the consequence of that? Well, just kind of being a little ostracized.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, I don't know if it's that, but can you think about that being sort of like ostracized? I think my arm is like on its own going down. Yes. When you were saying. And you see that less than not enough feeling, right? Yeah.

And so what I'm wondering is as we kind of go to that period of time of feeling less than or not enough, do you remember anything you would do to try to compensate for that? Gosh, I don't know if there was a way. Yeah. Like I don't know if I had a way because I just never, like it was very, it was very, you know. hard for me to like whenever I tried to you know kind of be more it never worked very well yeah to try to be more part of the part of the group I guess or whatever yes I felt I felt like it made me do things that I just didn't feel good about myself doing which so I kind of had to pull back from that but you tried so we're in the

zone where you were trying and I wasn't very proud of myself in a way to right doing that if that makes sense it makes sense it makes sense because we're dealing with shame right now. Right? This is a shame-based thing, right? So you're feeling not good about yourself. So you found shame like physically in my body somehow. Through that pulse point.

That's kind of weird. Because the acupuncture meridian, that particular meridian has a shame quality to it. So all of the major meridians, so say wood or liver gallbladder, like that has an anger quality to it. grief, a lung, large intestine, meridian. And so we're going to have to do a whole thing on acupuncture sometime. Right. Yeah. So this is integrating concepts of acupuncture.

And we're using at acupressure pulse points to sort of try to get at the meridian quality. And so that's what we're combining here, these different things from Western and Eastern worlds to get efficiently what's going on here. And so that shame-based less than not enough feeling is what we went to as an original, right? We started in present day and we're going to this early time in life where you're really feeling that less than not enough feeling, right? What I want you to do and trying to compensate for it

in feeling even worse, right? Yes, yeah, that makes sense. And so really seeing that, right? And really like letting yourself feel it as if you were eight years old, and I'm going to to like, and see now when I press down and I got this point, see how your arm doesn't go anywhere. And so you're going to relax this arm for me. And now you're going to bring your index finger and touch the point where I'm on. So you're going to bring it here just like this.

It's right here. Right here. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And now take your hand and bring it to your forehead like this. And I want you to relax. So let your elbows rest on your legs. Great. Now in that position, I want you to let time collapse. And I want you to be that eight-year-old for a moment. And I want you to breathe it in and out. Nice deep breaths, really experiencing that less than not enough feeling you had as an eight-year-old. And it can go to other times you felt that way or even present day, but try to stay connected to that eight-year-old boy feeling less than not enough. feeling that less than not enough feeling, breathing it and out for as long as you can stay connected to it until it dissipates or lips in some way, but just don't rush it. Nice deep breaths. I find it hard to hold that idea. That's okay. When you feel like you can't hold it anymore, you can just sit up. You want to experience it as much as you can, and so let me see how you're doing with it. hold and think about that time as that eight-year-old. And let's check the concept of any other

emotions with it. See how it just goes. And so shame, less than not enough, humiliation. So we're going to go to another version of it. So what we have is an energetic imprint of that time and a neurophysiologic imprint of that time. It's in the emotional part of your brain. It expresses itself and the rest of your body. And so let's go to that eight-year-old who's feeling pretty humiliated. close your eyes for a moment, and go back to that time at eight years old. And our emotion is humiliation. And feeling humiliated in that scene, can you see it? Can you see that humiliation?

Kind of, finding it hard to see it. Yeah. So one thing you should know is the brain protects against pain. And so unpleasant experiences, some people protect more than others. And so this is just a protection because there's an unpleasantness to it. Shame-based emotions like humiliation are the most unpleasant and most protected emotions. So as best you can, do your best to connect to that humiliation as an eight-year-old. All right, and hold.

And thinking about that humiliation. And so your humiliation that you weren't as good as the other kids, was that the issue? You know, I think it's something where you kind of just want to be able to be normal, everybody you do things right you do things wrong people just kind of treat you normally and they don't kind of you know sort of point you out as being weird and unusual yeah something like that yeah right so the humiliation of being pointed out of being weird and unusual thinking about that yeah the concept that compared to those other kids you were less than in some way yeah um

The concept that you were just as good as those kids. See, that is not off the thing. The concept that you were less than those kids. So say this, I was less than those kids. I was less than those kids. Hold. See how, like, solid that feels inside you? The concept that you're less than others.

The concept that you have to really overcompensate to be good enough. The concept that you're fine just as you are. The concept that you have to really overcompensate to be as good as others. See how your muscles jumping out as I say it. Do you feel it? I'm just, you know, I'm trying to like get you to connect to what's going on. I don't usually care with a patient so much. But yeah, the concept that you have to really compensate.

Yeah. Say this, I have to overcompensate to be as good as others. I have to overcompensate to be as good as others. compensate to be as good as others. And that feels very solid in your physiology. That's part of the neurophysiological imprint. Say this. I'm fine as I am without compensating.

I'm fine as I am without compensating. Yeah. Say this. I have to compensate. I have to compensate. See, that really changes. Yeah, the concept that you have to really compensate to be as good as others. The concept that you're worth less than others.

Say this, I'm worth less than others. I'm worth less than others. I can't get that down if I want to. Say this, I'm worth as much as anybody else. I'm worth as much as anybody else. My goodness. Say this, I'm worth less than others. I'm worth less than others.

Yeah, the concept that you're worth less than others. Okay, and so I want you to really, do you feel this in your physiology where we are right now? Do you feel it? Good. Index finger, oh, I'm sorry, we're here. This point there again. Okay, here. This finger. Do you feel?

Do I have to like be pushing hard on it? No, not that hard. Just slightly. Yeah. Okay. And then hand across the forehead. Okay. Flat across the forehead like time.

And that feeling in your physiology, that shame, that humiliation, that less than others, seeing it as that little kid and breathing it in and out and seeing how it connects to today until it shifts or dissipates. Nice deep breaths. It was a very real experience. to just do your best to connect to it, knowing that your brain wants to sort of tiptoe away from it. So I have like a concrete sort of memory of one instance of this. Great. Okay, that's good.

Okay, good. That's your brain trying to work with yourself. I mean, I feel kind of, is it supposed to kind of leave? Yeah, when it leaves, that's fine. You can just sit up. Again, I don't know if it's, you know, as a function of it leaving as in not wanting to be found or a function of it leaving as a consequence of, you know, good release or something like that. Yeah.

I don't have a good sense of that. If you didn't feel like you were able to kind of connect with that younger version of yourself, you know, maybe there's a piece of it that left that needs more reconciliation. I can't know, really, but hold. about that eight-year-old you hold. And it really might be that your mind body has done enough for this moment because you're not used to doing this kind of work. No. Right? And so in a way, the muscle test becomes insignificant. It's just a tool to get us right where we were. Right. So then it doesn't, you know, strong week doesn't matter so much. Right. And so let's go back to our entry. I'm

okay sleeping six plus hours a night. Okay. I'm okay. By the way, I feel unusually rested at the moment. Yeah, great. So this is one consequence of this. I feel, what is it again? So I'm okay sleeping six plus hours. I'm okay if I choose to. I'm okay. I deserve to sleep.

I deserve to sleep six plus hours a night. But even when you said it, did you notice you felt different inside of yourself? Yeah, I do. That's true. And that's the whole point so that you become more congruent with what you want to be true. Right. So some of that incongerance has been peeled away. Now you're feeling more congruent with what you want to be true.

Now there might be other things contributing to this, but I bet if I was able to do a couple of sessions with you. And maybe this was enough for this issue. But that's how the intervention works. Fascinating. And what we found is people who had like a big emotional stressor, a big T trauma, three to five sessions, and they were no longer reactive, and their brain scans showed it. That's what all those studies show, that their brain scans changed every time.

So this should be something very positive for PTSD and so, I mean, you mentioned that, the capital T trauma, right? So this is like a common use? So what we've tested it in are sort of big T traumas that aren't current over PTSD because those are the most common ones. People who have true PTSD, we use it. But a little more has to be done for those patients, right? For the everyday person who is trying to get through life, everybody has had experiences that sort of get in the way.

And that's the majority of the people that I see. But when we're doing a study, we've done people with big T traumas to show how the brain changes when you have them because that's when you can get the most bang for the buck in a clinical trial. Sure. You've kind of given me an overview of different elements of integrative medicine. Do all integrative medicine practitioners do this neuroemotional technique, or is it just specific to you or a select group of practitioners? Yes, it's relatively new. I mean, it's been around for a couple of decades, but in terms of the science, behind it and the validation of it.

So it's something that we're trying to make sure people know about because more and more integrative health practitioners, whether they're doctors or integrative mental health workers or other types of licensed health care providers. They can all take the training. And we provide some overview of it in the master's degree that we created in Integrative Health Sciences, but we really encourage people to go to the source where Dr. Walker developed it. He and his wife, Dr. Deb Walker, still oversee it and teach it.

So NETMindBody.com for people who want to learn more about it. Okay, wonderful. As we finish up today, a final thought, please. You know, this was one tool, the NET. And I think the great thing about integrative medicine is it opens up a world of additional tools to get to a better state of health. wellness, whether it's NAT, whether it's targeted nutrients or molecules like the NAC or NAC for the Parkinson's patients, whether it's the type of assessments that we do that reveal what's really

going on, say, with the gut microbiome or hormonal imbalances. And so it's this optimistic thing that we have a whole set of tools now to help people get to a better state of wellness. And finally, there's this recognition of integrative medicine as a subspecialty. Well, Dr. Daniel Monti, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you all for joining Dr. Daniel Monti and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jania Kellick.