Neuro Emotional Technique

Development by Scott Walker

The NET organization, N.E.T., Inc., says Scott Walker graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1965 and began developing the Neuro Emotional Technique in the mid 1980s after many years in practice. It says he began teaching NET seminars in 1988 and that his wife, Deb Walker, a chiropractor who joined his office in 1980, co-developed the method. These dates come from the organization itself and were not checked against an independent history.

The organization states that Walker started developing NET to help patients whose chiropractic adjustments did not hold, finding that a stress overlay often seemed to trigger the recurring problem. This is the originators' account of the motive and is not an established finding.

Intellectual roots as the originators state them

The NET organization places the method in a chiropractic lineage. It cites D. D. Palmer's 1895 statement about causes of disease, and it credits George Goodheart, founder of applied kinesiology, with observing that recurring spinal problems may have other causes, including an emotional overlay. It also says NET later added a non-needle acupressure point method drawn from meridian ideas. A 2026 review likewise describes NET as emerging from chiropractic and applied kinesiology traditions and drawing on concepts from behavioral psychology and traditional Chinese medicine.

The organization's account then describes the spread of the training: after chiropractors, members of the psychotherapeutic community, acupuncturists and naturopaths are said to have become interested in NET and sought training. How far this spread has reached is not documented by an independent source reviewed here.

Neuro emotional complex and emotional reality

The NET organization defines a neuro emotional complex (NEC) as a subjective maladaptation syndrome adopted by the body in response to a real or perceived threat. In its description an NEC includes a specific emotion, a conditioned response, a meridian imbalance with an active pulse point, a strong or weak muscle response, a memory picture of a past emotional event, and a vulnerability to repetition. These are terms of the NET system and not measured biomedical constructs.

The organization states that remembered events related to an NEC are treated as emotional reality, which may or may not correspond to actual or historical reality. A 2026 review makes a similar point, saying the model does not treat the muscle response as a detector of concealed emotional material or a measure of historical truth.

Distinguishing NET from related approaches

The NET organization says NET is not counseling and is not psychotherapy: it states that it does not use counseling, does not advise behavior change and does not aim at insight. It describes its target as a physical complex that includes an emotion and a related spinal or meridian imbalance. Machipedia pages for Psychotherapy, Applied Kinesiology, Energy Psychology, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and Emotion Code cover approaches that share some features with NET, such as attention to emotion, muscle testing or acupuncture points, but NET has its own protocol and its own training.

General outline of a session

Published descriptions call NET a structured protocol of about 15 steps that integrates ideas from behavioral psychology, traditional Chinese medicine, psychophysiology, manual muscle testing and somatic or spinal stimulation. In broad terms the practitioner identifies a presenting concern, uses structured questioning together with manual muscle testing to explore whether a particular emotional theme is associated with it, applies a manual correction, and then reassesses. This page does not give the steps or how to perform them.

The NET organization says the practitioner uses a manual muscle test as a gauge of involuntary reactions to physical or verbal stimuli. During the correction phase it says the patient focuses on an associated event while holding points, and that the practitioner may apply a pulse correction or a spinal correction. These are the organization's descriptions of its own method.

Who practices it

The NET organization states that seminar attendees must hold a bachelor's or higher degree in the healing arts and be currently licensed, registered or certified through an independent board, and that practitioners must use NET only within the scope of their license. Seminars are listed at levels such as NET Basic and NET Certification. A retrospective analysis of 761 consecutive new patients at one chiropractic clinic specializing in NET found that 54.8% presented with a musculoskeletal complaint and 36.0% with a non-musculoskeletal one, and the authors noted this was a higher share of non-musculoskeletal presentations than usually reported in chiropractic offices.

Remedies marketed alongside NET

The NET organization also sells a line of homeopathic products that it describes as supporting the NET process, and it lists a Home Run Formula model of care. The sources reviewed for this page did not evaluate these products, so nothing is stated here about their effects.

What the NET organization says it is for

The NET organization says body-oriented practitioners use NET for physical problems that have an associated stress component, and that mind-oriented practitioners use it for stress-related mental health symptoms and behaviors. It says that patients early on reported that their lives were also improving, with less stress. These are claims by the organization and are not established outcomes.

Conditions that have been studied

Published studies have examined NET for chronic low back pain, pregnancy-related low back pain, chronic pelvic pain, traumatic stress symptoms after cancer, spider phobia, primary hypothyroidism and general flexibility in healthy adults. The next section describes what these studies found. Choice of condition in a study is not evidence that the technique is suitable for that condition.

Pain and physical outcomes

A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial in one clinic gave 112 adults with chronic low back pain NET or control treatment twice weekly for four weeks. The authors report that NET produced larger declines than placebo in disability, pain and several inflammatory markers, with follow-up to six months. It is a single-site trial by a NET-affiliated group, and it has not been replicated independently in the sources reviewed here.

A pilot trial of 57 pregnant women with low back pain compared exercise, spinal manipulation and NET. Clinically meaningful improvement was seen in at least half of each group on the main disability measure, and there were no significant differences between groups; the study was not powered to detect them, and the authors noted that spinal manipulation and exercise performed slightly better than NET.

A trial of 45 healthy adults reported a 3.1 cm gain on a sit-and-reach test after two NET sessions, compared with 1.2 cm after stretching instruction and 1.0 cm with no intervention. The authors called for a larger study.

Psychological and brain imaging studies

A pilot trial randomized 15 people with spider phobia to two NET sessions or no intervention, and reported advantages for NET on subjective distress, reported fear and avoidant behavior, but not on trait anxiety or heart rate. A randomized study of patients with cancer-related traumatic stress symptoms, compared with a waitlist, reported changes in brain functional connectivity and lower heart rate reactivity after NET, and a randomized study of 26 women with chronic pelvic pain reported lower pain and anxiety plus connectivity changes versus waitlist.

These studies are small, compared NET with no treatment or a waitlist rather than an equally credible alternative, and their authors describe them as initial steps. Connectivity changes on imaging are not proof of a mechanism. A 2026 narrative review proposing a memory reconsolidation explanation states that this is a hypothesis for future testing and not something NET has been shown to do.

A null result and the state of the evidence

A placebo-controlled randomized trial of 90 adults with primary hypothyroidism received ten NET or placebo sessions over six weeks. It found no statistically significant or clinically relevant differences between groups in depression scores or thyroid measures at seven weeks or six months, and the authors concluded that NET is unlikely to be of therapeutic use in this population.

A 2026 review by a NET-affiliated author describes the literature as modest in volume and produced mainly by a small number of research groups with professional or clinical investment in the technique, and calls for independent replication to reduce the risk of allegiance bias. The sources reviewed here include no systematic review of NET. The searches run were PubMed for the technique's name, which returned about 26 records, and for related reviews of muscle testing.

Validity of muscle testing

Muscle testing is central to NET, and its use to infer emotional or other non-musculoskeletal states is contested. A chiropractic-journal literature review concluded that manual muscle testing has good reliability and validity for neuromusculoskeletal dysfunction, but a published critique by other chiropractic researchers argued that review did not separate ordinary strength testing from the applied kinesiology diagnostic procedures. The critique concluded that the few studies of those procedures refute or cannot support their validity, and that evidence does not support muscle testing for diagnosing organic disease.

A review of kinesiology literature found 22 studies of poor methodological quality and insufficient evidence for diagnostic accuracy or the validity of muscle response. A double-blind study of 51 participants found that kinesiologists identified a toxic solution at about chance level (53% of 151 trials). These studies concern applied kinesiology, not NET specifically, and they cannot be read as a test of the whole NET protocol.

The 2026 NET review treats muscle testing as a clinician-guided cueing process and not a diagnostic test, and proposes studying NET with the muscle test omitted or standardized. It notes that reliability depends on procedure, examiner training and the claim being made.

Other limits

Most NET trials use waitlist or no-treatment comparators, small samples and short follow-up, and several authors have links to NET research and training. The NET organization's own materials describe the method using general science claims, such as an account of how emotions are located in the body and the age of the five-element model, which this page does not treat as evidence about NET itself.

Adverse events reported in studies

In the hypothyroidism trial, a few short-lived minor adverse events were reported in both the NET and placebo groups. The spider phobia pilot reported no adverse reactions, and the pregnancy pilot concluded that safety was feasible to study in a larger trial. Small trials with short follow-up can miss uncommon harms, so an absence of reports does not show that none occur.

Care boundaries and recalled material

NET is described as used alongside other care and it should not replace diagnosis or treatment of a medical or mental health condition, or delay it. The hypothyroidism trial found no benefit for thyroid or mood measures, and the NET organization states that NET is not psychotherapy. No source reviewed here reported harms from recalled emotional material or addressed contraindications, so none are listed; a person with trauma symptoms may wish to discuss any approach with a qualified mental health professional.

Training and professional standing

Training is run by N.E.T., Inc., which sets entry requirements of an advanced healing-arts degree and a current license, and which lists seminars leading to certification. These are the organization's statements and have not been independently audited. No chiropractic or psychology professional body statement on NET was found on a free page during research for this page, so none is reported here, and the reviewers should check for one.