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Nada India Point 2015-2016: From Addiction treatment to well being

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
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