When neuroscientist Igor Mitrovic, MD, clinical research professor Lynda Frassetto, then-medical student Lindsey Fish, and I discovered EBT in 2007, we had no idea what to call it.
Since 1978, I used an emotion processing method based on three levels of stress. The previous version of the method was called “The Solution,” but now we had expanded the capabilities to cover the full spectrum of stress conditions and brain circuit training. At a research meeting, a renowned psychiatry professor advised me: “You can’t call it the solution. It sounds too grandiose, so researchers will want to spend their time studying it.”
At the time, I had a few wires of my own that needed to be cleared, including a fear of offending the academic establishment. I also admired and trusted this woman and thought maybe she was right.
What would we call it?
Our collaboration team met and took a break. Dr. Mitrovic said the method now covers the resilience (and therefore rewiring) of the entire emotional brain, the seat of the soul, survival, physiology and health. We chose emotional brain training because the brain only changes with experience. Since therapists are becoming certified in EBT as a new neuroscientific psychotherapy, we could have called it emotional brain therapy. Yet there was something about these tools that transcended therapy, as they were both necessary and useful in many ways, unlocking our immense power to rewire the elusive subconscious.
Of course, who used the instruments played a role, and we still train and certify medical professionals in this method today. The 30-minute coaching sessions get the brain moving to heal itself. They are intimate and effective.
The brain needs a little structure
My hope was to make the method the new neuroscientific 12-step method, with EBT support groups in every neighborhood. I liked the idea of it being free and EBT rewires the same circuits that cause addiction and mental and physical health problems. However, we investigated the use of support groups and a year-long study found that they were no longer usable. The work was deep enough to be transformative, and this disruption of the old cycle required a provider to provide structure, consistency, advice and support. We went back to the drawing board and added a dedicated health professional as a group leader, and participants were successful, staying in the group for an average of 57 weeks.
Although it is often said that it takes 30 days to change a habit, changing the mindset of the emotional brain takes a year. However, it takes time to train the brain to stay out of a default state of stress and instead favor the familiarity of joy, flow, peace and power. Without this change in set point, the “habit” changes either don’t stick or don’t last, but the brain encodes an equally unhealthy substitute.
The summary of the original article about EBT.
It was more than therapy. . . a new paradigm
Our original plan for the name of the method – Emotional Brain Training – turned out to be correct based on the results of subsequent research. The intervention was not only about the connection between provider and participant, but also about community, collective resonance, and a variety of “neuroplastic” experiences. For example, the number of peer connections (five minutes of listening or calling) with another group member predicted health outcomes and how much a participant liked EBT. The EBT support groups were the heart of the method, a healthy, inspiring six-person transformational “family” that started EBT week, but the brain-changing action (using the app to “transform into joy.” “), was needed It should be both entertaining and in-depth and include numerous community events, viewing video courses and posting in the forum.
All in all, the resulting EBT portal is more like a neuroscientific Disneyland of reconnecting pleasure and emotional and spiritual development than traditional psychotherapy or addiction counseling. That fun, intensity and variety of experiences are what the brain needs – and likes. The app is user-friendly and offers a choice of options: one minute (instant boost), two minutes (quick and easy), or more than three minutes (deep work). It’s not about one thing, but about how the entire experience miraculously changes the brain.
Construction workers repair the cathedral’s oak roof. David Bordes/Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris
The method was the new medicine that was fundamental to healthcare, so we called it Emotional Brain Training. Until recently, I thought of EBT as a noun. Then, this morning, I was relaxing and reading the newspaper, an outdated habit that I still maintain. There’s something undeniably calming about enjoying the tactile pleasure of turning pages paired with morning coffee and a conversation with my husband Walt. I read him some particularly delicious lines. . . and he fires back with some wise words, which we both marvel at!
It was a story about the newly opened Notre Dame in Paris and how they adjusted the grain of the wood tree by tree, and I thought, “These architects were so persistent. They must have made a lot of EBT.”
Notre Dame de Paris, the central nave, Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
EBT became a verb
Somehow they said they must have rewired a lot of circuits, all the reconsolidation of allostatic circuits that came from their childhood, or, the stress of it all, I bet they had to smash a lot of ridiculously strong wires, which took so much more work and they failed to convey the passion of most of us EBTers to “take no prisoners” when it comes to eliminating circuits that block our natural state of joy – sometimes gritty joy, but still that state of loving, grounded connection.
So from now on, look forward to hearing from your support group’s EBT provider, “Have you done the EBT?” When you do, I hope you remember these stories with the larger message that our beautiful, emotional brain has amazing resistance pathways that take us past the pain of the day back to our natural state of joy. Whatever comes our way. . . All we have to do is EBT it!