Nada India Point 2015-2016
From Addiction Treatment to Well being- Dr. Michael O. Smith
The NADA
protocol is a non-verbal treatment. If
the patient is ashamed to speak, the treatment still works. If the patient lies to us, the treatment
still works. People can't easily
describe what is wrong with them, but they will exhibit evidence of guilt and
all kinds of things that have happened to them. They're not able to say what their problem is,
and they resent your suggestions, your guessing, your contact with them. You have to help them gain strength before
you can start verbal therapy.
Acupuncture
helps you get settled, get comfortable with your own place, with your own life,
with your own thoughts. It does nothing
that wouldn't happen to you in the best of worlds – it doesn't add anything to
you. We have "feel better" in
us, and, while acupuncture does not solve problems, it helps us be in a better
place and to frame these problems differently.
This is a cooperative treatment with somebody who is going to help you
solve problems. Acupuncture helps a
person listen, take things in, have space in their mind instead of having
everything full and frightened.
Take for
example a child who is meeting foster parent number 10. The parent hugs the boy, but he remains stiff
as a board. We know why he's like that,
but we don't know how long it will take for him to relax – an hour, a few days,
a life time? We have to find a way to
reach him, because he can't reach out, he can't trust. The Chinese call this empty fire – empty on
the inside so there is all this tightness on the outside. We might call it reaction formation or
defensiveness. Acupuncture allows us to
reach that child – not solving the problem but setting up a situation to help
him evolve a little bit so that he can work at things.
Trauma
erodes a basic capability. The people
will still have the intellectual capacity, etc., that they had last week before
the trauma occurred, but there is an erosion in the middle. We have a lot of work to do to help these
people, and that work can’t begin with verbal therapy. Almost by definition, a person who has been
traumatized can't take one-to-one sessions.
So we start with acupuncture which is a very simplistic treatment – like
breathing and sleeping and hugging are simplistic things. These are the anchors for all of our life and
our well being and our sense of who we are.
Dr. Michael
O. Smith
Chairperson Nada
International