Matt and Carol Newell of the Family Hope Center.  Matt Newell, Occupational Therapist and CBI, is one of the most humble and inspiring people that you may ever come across. He sees bigger miracles than any other practitioner I have met in my 20 years of practicing alternative health care. Matt and his wife Carol run a clinic in Philadelphia called the Family Hope Center (FHC) and travel all over the world seeing clients with severe brain injuries. If anyone are miracle makers, it is them.

I am constantly amazed by the stories that I hear from him and I am so pleased that he has given us this interview to widen our view of what is possible. When I think 'How could I be a better person or practitioner?", I think of Matt for inspiration. I realized how much I limit my expectations when Matt told me it takes them, on average, 18 months to get a blind child to see and read.

Matt and his team are a bridge of hope for families and children around the world.

I've ask Matt to share some of his insights and experiences with us. Excerpts from his interview have been split into two parts, the first you'll find below, and the second will be in our next newsletter. The whole audio interview is available for on the resources page on our website www.bodytalkunlimited.com

Go to the FHC website to be inspired and broaden your horizons. www.familyhopecenter.org

"FHC specializes in children with neurological dysfunctions. What brought you to this line of work?""

I was studying exercise physiology and wanted to get into something more definitive, get more involved. I started into physical therapy then that grew into me deciding I wanted to be an occupational therapist. I found an organization that concentrated on neurological development. Almost the last 3 decades of my life is concentrated on neurological functional development. A fascination with the brain, a fascination with how to heal the brain.

"How did you come across BodyTalk and what interested you about BodyTalk in the context of your practice?"

Because families become a part of the FHC, one of the families called me up one day and said "Hey you got to check out this thing called BodyTalk, its right up your alley in that it goes to the core of healing". So I took my first seminar in New York and within the first hour I realized this was a very significant tool to help support the development of children.  The body is magnificently constructed and has a remarkable ability to heal. If you put in into the right position it can do that. BodyTalk helps the body be put into the right position. I see kids from 18 different countries and hear 18 versions of the same story. My child has epilepsy. My child is ADHD. My child has autism. My child has all these diseases. I look at it and say "Well no, this child has neurological dysfunction, this child has neurological disorganization. What is causing that?" BodyTalk helps get to the root.

"What's your favorite miracle story?"

I remember doing a session on a kid who was deaf. The cranial bones did not move when he was born, they were frozen. The front part of his brain grew out way over his eyebrows and he couldn't see, it closed his eyes. He was having seizures and he was deaf. The doctors figured out that if they did some surgery it could allow the bones to move. He had the operation and when he came in 2 months later for his first appointment he couldn't hear anything. I did a BodyTalk session with him, then put him down on the floor, banged some blocks and he turned.  And his mother wept. If it was a miracle this would only happen once in a while. But because it happens again and again and again, it becomes an understanding that the brain grows by use, and the body understands how to heal, you just need to put it into the right position.

"The FHC is a family run business for families. Tell us a little more about the FHC family, the goals and the challenges."

It did start as a family run business. My wife is an expert in teaching reading and social development in children. My expertise is in mobility development, kids who are paralyzed, how do you get them to move? We want it to be a family atmosphere. Our objective is to heal children, to put parents in the driving seats, to get to the root, to make kids well. We don't apologize for such a lofty objective. It's just a hard objective. And when you get the family involved the opportunity for success improves. We've surrounded ourselves with some really great people. When we come into the office we have 12 - 15 of us working side by side on behalf of that family. Everyone drops their egos at the front door, we focus on the kids, we get it done and kid improves. That's how we like to run our family, everyone is working as a team on behalf of that child.

We'll bring you part 2 of the interview in our next newsletter or click here to download the audio file of the full interview with Matt Newell from the Family Hope Center.

You can find out more about FHC and what they offer at

www.familyhopecenter.org

• Have a successful practice
• Take a proper intake
• Use different forms of evaluation
• Ensure your clients see results, continue to return and refer friends and family
• Ask the right questions and be a medical detective
• Structure a successful BodyTalk session
• Set up a professional clinic
• Charge clients appropriately
• Set up logistical aspects of administration, bookings, charging
• Be confident in your interactions with clients
• Market yourself effectively
• Structure lectures and talks for appropriate markets.

We received heart warming feedback to our article in last months newsletter 'The Youngest BodyTalker in the World' as many of you told your own stories. Thank you to everyone who wrote in. Children growing up immersed in these concepts don't even question whether it is possible, of course it is! We have much to learn from them and can't wait to see where the next generation takes the paradigm of healing.

"A little 8 year old came in for a session. On the way in his mom with her Russian accent told him that I would be pulling on his arm. He looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye and said "Are you going to pull my leg to"?" - Catherine Morse, Tasmania  

"My son Matej is 19 months and we used Cortices on him almost every day. Now he starts to tap his head and chest when he sees someone upset. Last week we were at friends house and he had been holding wooden duck and he dropped it, pick it up and started tap it's head and then his head and chest.... So wonderful to see he has this amazing tool as a second nature." - Alice Najmanova, UK

"Our daughter Olivia, now 5 years old, just loves tapping out since early childhood, plants, horses, dogs, cat, chickens, bugs and insects, rocks, and the water. I remember her teaching Access to a guest who was not feeling well at the retreat... how powerfully fascinating children are." - Malvina Roudey and Dillon Harvey, Cape Town

"My daughter Rose has Down's Syndrome. When she taps out it can rock your world. She just knows it works. Or, doesn't question whether it does or doesn't.  She's 28 but has still pretty much held on to that capacity. Makes me aware of why other-abled people were considered 'sacred' in many cultures. I can't even imagine what her capabilities would have been if we had worked with these kinds of ideas and skills sooner in her life instead of over-focusing on making her 'normal'." - Jenna Caplette, Montana

"Isn't it wonderful that young children catch on so quickly - my 3 year old client, after just two sessions, has been tapping out friends, family and pets for some months now!  She simply l-o-v-e-s BodyTalk!!! What is the minimum age for attending modules - LOL?"  - Jill Nutsford, New Zealand

Ask Dr. Ka'imi
Adv Sr. CBI, VP for Academic Development at the IBA

Ev Endris from IA USA, wrote in with two questions about permissions, which is one of my favorite topics:

Q: I was asked if it would be possible to help a ten year old child who was adopted as a toddler with BodyTalk. The child has always been extremely defiant and is now institutionalized having done a lot of psychological harm to her family. The parents would give permission, but in a case of such a defiant child, would the child be so defensive that the child would be unlikely to give permission? Does the child need to give verbal permission?

A: This is really two questions, and I'll answer both here. The first questions is how likely is that permissions will be a priority, and that you will end up getting no permission to balance? The second question is, do I need verbal permission from the child.

To the first part, I would say that you are unlikely to be denied permission through the muscle checking. Even though the child is consciously defiant, I would consider it unlikely the he really wants to be institutionalized, so I expect that you will have permission to do the balancing. But you have to honor whatever answer you get, of course. If the child is afraid or defiant, you may need to the session at a distance. Even if they come to your office, you may want to do the session without actually touching them, in essence do a short-distance session.  This can be a useful technique when either a child is very sensitive, or defiant as in this case.

To the second part of the question, needing the child's verbal permission is more complicated. The short answer is that in this case, I don't think you would need verbal permission from the child. But each circumstance needs to be evaluated separately. In general, children are able to give independent consent or refusal to treatment once they are considered capable or competent. This is difficult to establish and in some cases, courts have ruled a child competent to refuse medical treatment at as young an age as twelve years old. In other cases, courts have ruled that a fifteen year old is not competent to make medical decisions. So it is not possible to clearly establish guidelines around when the child has the right to over-ride parental wishes. In this case, the child is ten years old, which is pretty young to be ruled competent. The fact that the child has been institutionalized would strongly argue against the child having a right to refuse treatment that the parent wishes. It is always a sound idea to have parental permission for a minor child.

Q: If permissions come up at the beginning of the first session, are they treated in the same way as they would be if they come up later? I.e. do you just resolve the permissions issue, or does it indicate the person is not ready or willing to receive?

A: It means the same thing either way. Everyone has resistance to change. What is familiar (even if painful) is less frightening than the unfamiliar. So simply do the balancing and know that you are resolving subconscious resistance to deep change. Since we all suffer from this resistance, it is great news when it comes up in a session! It means that the person is ready for a deeper transformation today. If you discuss it that way, they will be eager to resolve their subconscious limitations by doing the balancing.