Emmett Miller MD
Physician, Master Therapist, Coach, Mentor
Acclaimed “Father of Mind-Body Medicine”
Over 50 Years Ago
Dr. Miller realized that the most powerful tool for healing was the mind-body connection. He made it his mission to develop a deep understanding of the role of the higher levels of the mind in producing profound healing and life transformation. To use his world-famous voice to create powerful mind tools for the healing mind, body, emotion, and spirit.
My Vision:
I envision a world where we have upgraded our “mental operating systems,” evolved beyond the ruling paradigm of intimidation, fear, conflict, and Violence, and eliminated the mind control algorithms that program us against our will. Instead, we have deepened our wisdom to inspire a New Paradigm of Love: compassion, caring, joyful relationships with self, friends, family, community, and environment.
~ Emmett Miller MD
Rewiring the Brain & Mind:
Dr. Miller’s Revolutionary Approach to Healing
Dr. Miller’s healing journey began with the discovery of the serene “Healing State,” a synthesis of meditation, prayer, autogenic training, and hypnotic induction. This state, characterized by profound peace and tranquility, proved to be a direct antidote to stress.
Recognizing the potential of this calm, receptive mental state, Dr. Miller saw it as a gateway to deep healing of the body, mind, emotion, and behavior, as well as a conduit to inner wisdom and spiritual insight. Since research indicated that most afflictions stem from mental algorithms, ingrained nervous system reactions formed during past traumas, he devised the Coherency Theory of Health and Disease and the highly refined Selective Awareness Exploration age regression technique.
This unique approach, beginning with patients’ presenting symptoms and behaviors, gently reveals traumatic events, gradually desensitizing and reprocessing them (mental image rehearsal). (someone listening thru earphones relaxed)
Through the recordings made during the live session, daily immersion in rescripting imagery, accessed in the self-induced Healing State, old wounds are healed, and new neural pathways are forged (neuroplasticity). The result is rewiring the nervous system (neuroplasticity) and creating new adaptive responses and deep healing.
Dr. Miller’s groundbreaking work culminated in the world’s first catalog of guided imagery meditation tapes, addressing ailments ranging from headaches and labor pains to smoking cessation and sports performance enhancement. The collection was entitled “Software For The Mind,” because they presented new algorithms (behavior patterns) listeners could learn to reprogram their thinking and rewire their brains. These programs were widely embraced by individuals seeking healing and peak performance, health professionals prescribing them, and psychologists and therapists studying and applying his techniques. Keeping up with modern technology his growing catalog of programs have been published as CDs, and are now available to download or stream on this site.
With Dr. Miller’s soothing voice as a guide, people have found a simple yet potent means to reprogram their thinking and rewire their brains. Over the years, his ideas have gained traction, have become integral to modern science and therapy, and are revered by professionals worldwide. Today, most mental health professionals include in their practices many of the mental tools originally discovered 50 years ago in a young doctor’s mind-body practice in Carmel, California.
Through Dr. Miller’s pioneering approach, the once-elusive path to healing became accessible to all, marking the start of a paradigm shift in the healing arts and ushering in a new era of holistic wellness at the individual, group, and global levels.
Change Your Mind, Change Your Life!
Healing Journey
Listen to this clip from “Healing Journey” the audio program that awakened the world to the power of Deep Relaxation and Guided Imagery to heal.
Dr. Emmett Miller, Up Close and Personal:
A Biographical Sketch
Emmett Miller, MD, has been referred to as “The Father of Mind-Body Medicine” and “The Man with The Valium Voice.” He is best known for his series of recorded Guided Imagery Meditations. His revolutionary work in developing the holistic approach to healing and creating the first Guided Imagery audiotapes in the 1970s placed him decades ahead of mainstream Medicine and Psychology. Dr. Miller continues to generate new insights, breakthroughs, and products to guide people in self-healing. Here is his personal story.
Emmett Miller was born in Baltimore, Maryland, just a few weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack, but soon relocated with his family to New York City. He grew up in the heart of “Bed-Stuy,” the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, known for its rich African-American culture but also for gangs, race riots, and poverty. There, he learned firsthand about the senselessness and destructiveness of anger, violence, and hatred. He developed a strong aversion to violence and chose to avoid it whenever possible. And there was plenty to avoid, both in school and on the city streets!
A Child’s Resolve: The Birth of a Lifelong Mission
“I date the awakening of my life’s mission to an experience in the fifth grade, within the walls of Public School 138 in New York City. It all began with a simple assignment: choose a book for a report. Little did I know that selecting “Five Chimneys” would alter the course of my life forever.
“As I delved into the pages penned by a female physician who endured two years in Nazi concentration camps, I was shocked by the unimaginable horror that confronted me. The cruelty, the murders, the sexual abuse—it shook me to my core. But what struck me most was the realization that an industrialized genocide machine had systematically annihilated millions of lives.
Yet, when I voiced my outrage to friends and family, the response was chillingly indifferent. “Hitler is gone, the Nazis defeated,” they said. “No need to dwell on the past.” But this was more than history—a warning ignored, a darkness overlooked. Human beings being mowed down and poisoned like a field of weeds.
“I couldn’t shake the feeling that a sinister force lurked in our world, one that too few of us were aware of or cared about. Our collective denial only made us more vulnerable, and I couldn’t understand how people failed to see the importance of what I saw so clearly. So, in my youthful naivety, I vowed to uncover the root of this stupidity or madness and try to do something about it . . . even if I had to work all alone!
“This resolve became a kind of guiding light. It led me through the halls of Science, seeking to understand the intricacies of our world. It propelled me to plumb the depths of mathematics, where pure logic and reason could be found. And finally, it delivered me to the field of medicine, where I could probe the complexities of the human mind and body and discover what ‘healing’ is.
“In that fifth-grade classroom, my mission was born—a mission fueled by outrage, tempered by understanding, and driven by an earnest desire to make a difference. From that moment on, I knew my path had been chosen: to confront evil, seek truth, and heal humanity’s wounds. My heroes were The Lone Ranger and Superman—”who, disguised as a mild-mannered reporter, carries on a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.”
Intellect and Struggle:
The High School Passage
Secondary education for Emmett took place at Jamaica High School in Queens, New York. The academic program at the school was reasonably good, but the racial tensions and the constant threat of violence made for a stressful social environment. Nevertheless, Emmett’s consistent high scores on achievement tests showed that he possessed a keen intellect and a gift for perceiving truth. He wondered if that was why people could not see things that were achingly clear to him. As he began to understand his own potential, he wondered whether, if he was smart enough to bring about the sweeping changes he hoped for, he might even find others to team up with him. To Emmett’s way of thinking, blindness to the folly of violence could very well lead to the destruction of the environment–even the annihilation of all life through nuclear Armageddon.
The Pivot to Medicine: Bridging Science, Mathematics, and Humanity
After he graduated from Jamaica High, Emmett attended Trinity, a private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut, known for its goals of creating intimate learning environments, exploring broad intellectual perspectives, and fostering bold exploration to help students follow their passions in life.
There, he followed his passion, the study of Science, until he realized that his mission was evolving. While solid scientific research is essential to learning the truth about the physical, chemical, and biological world, it was Mathematics, the “Queen and Handmaiden of Science,” whose advanced studies opened the doors to understanding deeper logical frameworks. Emmett went on to graduate with a major in Mathematics.
Midway through his four years of college, Emmett realized that although Science and advanced mathematical/logical thinking had prepared him well for understanding the world, medical school would provide an understanding of human beings: their problems, their thinking, and their behavior. Further, in medical school he would learn about and eventually be permitted to employ all known ways to improve their lives. Providing patients with health would also enable them to find peace, freedom, and happiness–the opposite of violence and suffering.
The Albert Einstein College of Medicine and other Medical Adventures
Emmett’s application for admission to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine was accepted, and the next phase of his mission preparation began. The intellectual quality of the Einstein experience was excellent, but even though the school boasted a strong commitment to honoring, respecting, and facilitating patients’ emotional and spiritual needs, the student training on patient support for self-healing was shockingly below par.
By the time he had graduated from Albert Einstein in 1967, young Dr. Miller had become convinced that, in many ways, mainstream medicine was missing the boat.
To this new physician, it seemed clear that most of our illnesses were caused or exacerbated by stress, stress-induced habits, and addictions. Because they were unaware of this, physicians and psychologists seemed to be failing their patients by not teaching them to use the power of their minds to heal, eliminate addictive behaviors, and take charge of their lives. In addition, the arms of the government that should be acting to protect citizens from rapacious drug companies, environmental destruction, increasing gun violence, disastrous wars, and disease-producing diets were failing horribly. The madness was even more endemic than he had suspected!
By the time he had graduated from Albert Einstein in 1967, young Dr. Miller had become convinced that, in many ways, mainstream medicine was missing the boat.
Journey into Self-Healing: Unraveling and Harnessing the Power of Mental Algorithms
New Research and New Tools
Following medical school, Dr. Miller served two years during the Vietnam War at the Fort Ord Army Post in Monterey, California. There, he designed and carried out a research study for the Surgeon General, which seemed to confirm his suspicions. The study compared the results of physicians’ “sick-call” treatment of infantry trainees to that of enlisted medics. The study revealed that medics made no significant errors, the soldiers preferred their experience with the medics, and soldiers appeared to heal faster from illness and injury. Dr. Miller reasoned that the medics, who were not officers, were more empathetic and could relate better to the trainees.
Following his discharge, Dr. Miller joined the medical practice of Peter Mutke, a German physician who was a well-known hypnotherapist, in Carmel-by-the Sea, California. Dr. Miller soon realized that the deeply relaxed
state of hypnosis was perfect for relieving stress, which he knew was the direct source of many diseases and psychological illnesses. His developing theory of human Mind-Body afflictions recognized that early-life trauma, and the complex trauma of dysfunctional lifestyles, created patterns (algorithms) in the unconscious mind that were significant factors in the etiology of many chronic conditions. Still, he had not yet found a way to bypass patients’ resistance to confronting trauma and rescripting the mind.
“One of the most thrilling moments in my life was realizing, during my experience of the hypnotic state, that this was the key to bypassing resistance and reprogramming the human biocomputer!”
— Emmett Miller MD
Probing the Mind and Developing a New Theory and Technique
Perhaps it was because he was a mathematician who had also studied computer programming back in 1962 as part of his math program, Dr. Miller was one of the first physicians to realize that the mind/brain functions, in many ways, as a bio-computer. It perceives, reasons, and experiences emotions according to the algorithms (rules followed in problem-solving operations) programmed into it. This processing takes place without our knowledge or consent. We are only aware of the thought (“I need a drink), the sensation (“My head is beginning to ache”), the behavior (shortness of breath), or the emotion (“I don’t know why I am feeling so sad”).
Traumatic experiences in life, ranging from ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) to being bullied or body-shamed as a teen to living through wartime events, produce algorithms intended to provide escape. These algorithms are then applied to any situation in which the Limbic System (the monkey mind) is triggered–even minor events–creating increasing levels of stress, along with the diseases and behaviors it causes.
Dr. Miller then found that certain states of consciousness, such as deep relaxation, hypnosis, meditation, and profound prayer, are programming states for the mind/brain. He repeatedly demonstrated this fact using Selective Awareness Exploration, a guided imagery-based process that enables a person, through hypnotic age regression, to peacefully revisit the relevant traumas in their life and desensitize themselves.
In this way, a person can examine traumatic events without triggering the anxiety or despair usually associated with visiting traumatic memories, develop a deep understanding of how and why these past reactions occurred, and invent a way to respond emotionally instead of their usual illness-inducing script.
Software for the Mind: Writing a New Life’s Script
The next challenge in the self-healing process is to write a new script for responding without stress and behaving in a new way, one that creates positive outcomes. To do so, Dr. Miller learned how to collaborate with his patients or clients, while they were in the Healing State, to develop new patterns of mental images and visualizing new, more adaptive behaviors. Many of these new behaviors were derived from the patient/client’s own wisdom and spiritual guidance, and others were from Dr. Miller’s guidance.
Finally, to make these changes permanent, Dr, Miller prescribed the daily practice of deep relaxation and Mental Image Rehearsal to desensitize reactions to the past, literally rewire the brain, and create a new future.
Using these new tools in his own life, he developed a special way to communicate with patients and clients. This method involved creating imagery comprised of speaking with poetically and being sensitively attuned to deep changes within the client, all while in a relaxed and positive state within himself. This, together with the remarkable tone and timbre of his voice and its soothing cadence gave a remarkable effectiveness to his guided imagery meditations.
Modern Technology Contributes a Powerful New Dimension to Self-Healing
Then came the invention of the audiocassette, a boon to Dr. Miller’s work, as he could now send people home with personalized cassette recordings of their sessions, including the deep relaxation induction and the specific suggestions and mental imagery to rehearse daily. This proved massively more effective than giving people a written script for producing the correct images and the Healing State at home.
This mental image rehearsal with Dr. Miller’s voice proved to create more profound, more permanent change than had ever been possible before. During image rehearsal, neurons are guided to repeat new ways of connecting, resulting in the growth of new connections (neuroplasticity) and even new nerves (neuroneogenesis), thus literally “rewiring” the brain with new, more adaptive algorithms.
Determined to share his discoveries with the world, Dr. Miller published his first book, Selective Awareness, in 1973. Another first, the book was packaged along with experiential demonstrations of its lessons, audiocassettes featuring his most successful guided imagery meditation techniques. He offered this package inexpensively to medical, psychological, and psychiatric colleagues nationwide, where the therapeutic approaches and the cassettes proved successful in other doctors’ practices as they were in his own. Indeed, their unqualified success and popularity encouraged him to mass-produce the cassettes and, during the mid-1970s, they were stocked nationwide in book stores, music stores, and shops that carried spiritual books and materials, another first.
The Guided Imagery recordings slowly spread knowledge of Dr. Miller’s techniques worldwide as he and a few colleagues* worked to transform Medicine and Psychology. His notion of writing new scripts for the mind/brain, known as cognitive behavior restructuring, or Software for the Mind, is at long last becoming accepted in today’s world.
Dr. Miller received professional acclaim for his first book, Selective Awareness, The New Science of Mind-Body Medicine (1970).
In 1970, a manuscript of Dr. Miller’s book was discovered by Richard Price, co-founder of Esalen Institute in Big Sur. He recognized how Dr. Miller’s work was an excellent complement to the Gestalt Psychology workshops he was teaching at Esalen, and together they taught many classes to professionals and non-professionals there.
This led to Dr. Miller leading classes on various aspects of his developing Mind-Body theory and practice over the next 20 years, and opportunities for him to have personal experiences with other thought leaders of that era, such as Moshe Feldenkrais, Alan Watts, Al Huang, Gregory Bateson, and Virginia Satir. He also co-led workshops and trainings with several teachers, including his close colleague, Baba Ram Dass, well-known author of Be Here Now.
Many of Dr. Miller’s professional students confirmed his findings and incorporated them in their own practices and teachings. For example, Dr. Francine Shapiro applied his theories and tools in the creation of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), perhaps the most effective technique for resolving Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She personally recommended his Letting Go of Stress to all of the therapists she trained.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Miller spread the word about his exciting discoveries through lectures at universities and medical schools, including Stanford Medical School; the University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses; the San Francisco Academy of Hypnosis; and the University of Notre Dame. He also spoke at corporations and professional organizations around the country.
As he had no university or governmental support and no promotional funds, Dr. Miller relied on “guerilla marketing,” distributing his audiocassettes to students and attendees at each of his hundreds of appearances throughout the U.S. and other countries. Health professionals began to prescribe these materials, sharing and employing his lessons in their practices and teachings. Gradually, his teachings on Deep Relaxation, Guided Imagery, Selective Awareness, Mental Image Rehearsal, and Harnessing Stress for Peak Performance spread to those who integrated these mind-tools into their own work.
In the 1980s elite athletes, including many Olympic and professional team members, discovered that they could maximize their athletic performance using Dr. Miller’s Mental Image Rehearsal technique. People in other fields, such as musicians, entertainers, students, and businesspeople, also found his inexpensive tapes and CDs to be effective tools for achieving peak performance.
Along the way, Dr. Miller authored several books, including Feeling Good – How to Stay Healthy, Opening Your Inner “I,” Self-Imagery
Dr. Miller and Dan O’Brien, world's premier decathlete in the 1990s: winner of 1996 Olympics and World Championships,
Dr. Miller’s ongoing research endeavors focus on developing healing interventions for couples, families, and organizations, with a long-term vision of contributing to global healing initiatives.
Following the publication of his masterwork, Deep Healing – the Essence of Mind-Body Medicine (1997), which encapsulated his teachings and mind tools and taught self-guided experiences for self-healing, Dr. Miller’s work became a classic in the field.
Dr. Miller intended this comprehensive volume to present the entirety of Mind-Body Medicine, ranging from fundamental theories to specific applications. It includes a step-by-step guide for personal use, enabling individuals to access the Healing State and create healing imagery for pain management, addressing physical ailments and emotional distress, habit alteration, and performance enhancement. This deep and rich guide still serves as a resource for ongoing reference and a training manual for future practitioners, anticipating the gradual integration of Mind-Body Medicine into mainstream healthcare over the next two decades.
A Wake-Up Call: The Growth of Global Polarization
Dr. Miller intended this comprehensive volume to present the entirety of Mind-Body Medicine, ranging from fundamental theories to specific applications. It includes a step-by-step guide for personal use, enabling individuals to access the Healing State and create healing imagery for pain management, addressing physical ailments and emotional distress, habit alteration, and performance enhancement. This deep and rich guide still serves as a resource for ongoing reference and a training manual for future practitioners, anticipating the gradual integration of Mind-Body Medicine into mainstream healthcare over the next two decades.
The aftermath of the September 11th World Trade Center attack deeply troubled Dr. Miller, particularly the collective trauma the nation experienced as news channels showed the airplanes slamming into the towers daily for weeks and months following the terrible event. What Dr. Miller saw was the continued traumatization of the populace, including escalating anxiety, helplessness, and anger. To him, this represented a kind of cultural PTSD.
And as his theory predicts that cultural trauma can cause the same negative outcomes and personal trauma, he could see the potential for increasing cultural stress, social fragmentation, conspiracy theorizing and misguided decision-making at the cultural and global level. Subsequent events, including the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the societal repercussions, reinforced Dr. Miller’s concerns.
He wished that more people could learn what he had been teaching his clients and patients about how to heal and avoid post-traumatic stress reactions at the global level. Realizing that too few people might read it, still he felt it his responsibility to publish Our Culture on the Couch – 7 Steps to Global Healing (2009), warning against the dangerous consequences of perpetuating divisive narratives. It revealed his conviction that healing requires upgrading our “mental operating system” to a higher level, replacing divisive “Violent “ reactions with the integrative responses of the “Love” paradigm.
Today, some of Dr. Miller’s direst predictions appear to be manifesting. In the decade following the books publication, people seemed to abandon their minds and children to the dependency creating, exploitative, heartless manipulation by predators on the internet. Social cohesion began to fall apart with the misinformation aimed at adults, especially by the political classes. By the ‘20s our PTSD increased even more due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its shameful mishandling by the “authorities.”
The dimming of the principles of “Love” and the rise of “Violence,” the loss of “We” in favor of “Us vs. Them,” and the tendency toward fragmentation instead of harmony has continued to the point that it seems our very democracy is now threatened. The proliferation of misinformation on the internet and especially on social media has dramatically accelerated this disastrous phenomenon.
Social stressors are creating toxic reactions worldwide, hand-in-hand with the rise of easy escape behaviors; all of this is similar to the way personal stressors promote anxiety, rage, and addictions with long-term, disastrous consequences.
Current social propaganda uses the creation of fear, followed by the offer of an escape route in the form of a certain product for purchase; a particular candidate to vote for; or a particular person, race, or nation to blame and hate.
Dr. Miller’s Mind-Tools are an excellent antidote for the propaganda, enabling people to quiet the monkey mind and access their inner sources of wisdom, strategizing, and inspiration. There has never been a greater need for them.
Dr. Miller Today
Presently, Dr. Miller is dedicated to developing DrMiller.com, a comprehensive online platform to disseminate his principles and practices. This platform, his legacy, will continue to offer a wealth of resources, including a complete library of self-guided imagery meditation recordings for healing and peak performance, available for download or streaming. In addition, recorded courses, webinars, and podcasts will be offered. His private coaching, mentoring, and therapy sessions for individuals and groups are especially valuable via virtual platforms such as Zoom, FaceTime, and telephone.
*Martin Rossman, MD; Ken Pelletier, PhD; Joan Borysenko, PhD; Bernie Siegel, MD; David Bressler PhD; Rachel Remen, MD; Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD; Andrew Weil, MD, important contributors to the initial development of Mind-Body Medicine who deserve recognition.
Dr. Miller’s Guided Imagery Products
Many years ago, Dr. Miller realized that the mind-body connection was the most powerful tool for healing, and that it was being ignored by the Healthcare System. It became his professional mission to introduce the psycho-bio-social approach into the field of medicine and psychology. Since then, he has become a trusted source of knowledge and wisdom in the healing field and is committed to creating quality self-healing Mind Tools and products for individuals and professionals to use to heal the mind and the body. He started by inventing the first guided imagery cassette tapes and has continued to publish the finest programs as CDs and instant MP3 downloads.
Footnote:
Acknowledgement, with love and respect for my colleagues, fellow movers and shakers in the holistic health and Mind-Body field: Ken Pelletier, David Bresler, Larry Dossey, Ram Dass, Martin Rossman, Joan Borysenko, Jeanne Achterberg, Jon Kabat Zinn, Herbert Benson, Peter Mutke, Carl Simonton, Francine Shapiro . . . Thank you.
“We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams”…A. O’Shaughnessy.