How do neurobehavioral disorders shape our lives from childhood into adulthood? Join us as Dr. Rob Melillo and Dr. Peter Scire unravel the complexities of brain balance and neurobehavioral disorders, shedding light on the transformative impact of Dr. Melillo's influential book, "Disconnected Kids." Together, we explore its evolution over the years and how it has shifted perspectives within families and the scientific community. Discover the implications these disorders have beyond the formative years and the significant insights Dr. Skier brings to understanding the brain's connection to immune function.
Ever wondered how scientific research translates into practical applications? We delve into the journey that bridged the gap between fragmented research and accessible knowledge, led by Dr. Melillo's pioneering work in understanding ADHD and autism. The episode illuminates the evolution of treatment models, particularly how the Brain Balance model matured into the Melillo Method, integrating new research to tackle functional disconnection syndrome. Our conversation emphasizes the importance of clinician certification and training, equipping professionals with the necessary tools to address complex neuropsychiatric issues effectively.
The foundation of our discussion lies in the critical role of primitive reflexes in early development and their profound impact on conditions like autism. By integrating these reflexes with brain differentiation, we highlight a multimodal therapeutic approach that offers hope for those facing neurobehavioral challenges. We discuss the limitations of traditional medicine and psychology, underscoring the importance of innovative approaches in improving mental health outcomes. This episode promises a comprehensive understanding and newfound optimism for clinicians, parents, and individuals navigating the intricate world of neurobehavioral disorders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Funkbed Nation podcast.
I'm your host, dr Steve Noswery.
The views and opinionsexpressed by my guests in this
podcast are not necessarilyconsistent with my own views and
opinions.
However, I do my best to berespectful of their views and
opinions as they express them,even if they differ from my own.
(00:24):
Now let's get to the podcast.
Hey guys, Dr Noseworthy here.
Before we get started with theinterview, I want to say a few
things about my two guests today, who are Dr Rob Melillo and Dr
Peter Skier.
I'm just going to read you fromDr Melillo's website to give
(00:45):
you a little bit about hisbackground, and we'll talk about
how he and Dr Skier have workedtogether for many, many years.
But in 2004, dr Melillopublished Neurobehavioral
Disorders of Childhood anEvolutionary Perspective, which
was a working theory textbook ondevelopmental disabilities, and
this book continues to beutilized at both a graduate and
(01:09):
undergraduate level inuniversities around the world.
Dr Milillo's bestselling bookin 2009, called Disconnected
Kids, catapulted him to nationalprominence and greeted with
overwhelming positive response.
The thesis of that book servesas the foundation for the work
being done at brain balancecenters around the country, and
(01:30):
we're talking today about thethird edition of his book
Disconnected Kits.
Now he's got a very richbackground as an author, a
researcher, a clinician, anentrepreneur, and so we'll just
leave it there as hisintroduction.
Dr Peter Skyer you mayrecognize his name.
I did a two-part interview withhim not long ago where we
(01:52):
talked about something calledimmunosception, which is a
subcomponent of a larger conceptof the brain called
interoception.
And Dr Peter Skyer is afantastic clinician in his own
right.
But he's been associated withDr Malolo and his work for many,
many years, in fact, being theowner of, I believe, the first
(02:12):
three brain balance centers whenthat kicked off back at its
origin point.
Since then he's become let'scall it and these are my words
Dr Melillo's right-hand man, soto speak, and he teaches at a
postgraduate level with DrMelillo in what is called the
Melillo Method, which is theupgraded version, if you will,
(02:36):
of how to deal withneurobehavioral disorders and
other neurological conditionsthat we see quite commonly in
clinical practice from acutting-edge science perspective
.
And so I'll leave theintroduction there.
Let's get back to the interview.
I kind of want to split theconversation, as best we can,
(02:57):
into two segments.
One is Rob to talk about thethird edition of your book,
disconnected Kids.
Is, rob, to talk about thethird edition of your book,
disconnected Kids?
And, you know, probably branchthat out into a broader
conversation aboutneurobehavioral disorders and,
you know, not necessarilyconfining it to children and
adolescents, but talking aboutsome of the things that we might
(03:17):
see in adults that could bestemming from issues that they
had when they were younger.
But then, you know, maybe turnthe conversation into a little
bit more of a clinicalconversation.
And you know, last time Peterand I talked, we talked about
interoception andimmunoreception and the role of
the brain in controlling immunemechanics, and I think that
(03:39):
that's just a fascinating topicand it's, you know, certainly
something that we see inclinical practice all the time
issues with those functions, andwe'll cover as best as we can.
I mean, if you're feeling kindof generous, we could always
split this into two differentsessions and I'm certainly more
than willing to do that.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
So, rob, let's talk about yourbook.
(04:00):
You wrote the first edition Ithink it was 2009.
Correct, and I did get thatbook and I read it then, and
I've just finished reading thethird edition, which I don't
think is published yet.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It just came out, on the 6th of August, it did.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, congratulations on that.
And, for those who might notknow, we're in an era now where
pretty much anybody can publisha book right, because the whole
self-publishing engine is outthere.
But it's another thing to bepicked up by a publishing house.
That's, I think, a lot harderthan it was 20 years ago, and
(04:36):
the fact that you are publishedby an actual publisher and now
you're on your third edition,and now you're on your third
edition, I think, speaks volumesto the quality of the work as
well as the value that you bringto families that are struggling
with kids and family membersthat have neurobehavioral
(04:57):
disorders.
So why don't you take just aminute to describe the concept
of disconnected kids?
And you can go back to what we,you know, what we all call the
origin story, like why did youwrite the first book, what led
to that, and maybe walk us up ingeneral terms to now.
We have a third edition andyou've, you know, added quite a
bit of new material to that.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, you know, my publisheris actually Penguin, which is
the largest publisher in theworld, and I was told when I did
publish my book for the firsttime that getting a book
published by a major publisherwas the hardest thing to do in
any form of media, meaning itwas harder than getting, like, a
record deal, it was harder thangetting a movie deal, you know
(05:40):
it is, and it's even harder now,especially for fiction.
But yeah, so you know, and thisis actually my third edition of
this book, and then I havethree other books with Penguin,
so you know it's been reallyblessed that I have that, and
also the book is translated into18 languages around the world.
(06:01):
And so you know it really allstarted with when I, you know,
when I was working, you knowdeveloping work and teaching
neurology and doing my neurostuff, and you know I was
working a lot with adults and wewere.
You know it was the early 90sand the 90s was a decade of the
(06:21):
brain, according to BillClinton's declaration, and so
all this new research was comingout and I was really immersed
in it because I was teaching itand I was starting to do some
brain research and the idea oflooking at the way the brain
develops and how it works andhow it connects and communicates
and the idea of functionalconnectivity really became a
(06:43):
thing then and the idea thatthere weren't really single
lesions in the brain and thatthere weren't really a lot of
genetic mutations going on butthat really there were just
problems with the way that thebrain was communicating, the way
networks were connecting andcommunicating with one another
and something was disruptingthat and it wasn't completely
(07:03):
clear what that was or how ithappened.
But it was more and more clearthat that was it.
And with new imaging techniqueslike fMRI and PET scan and
SPECT scans andmagnoencephalography and better
ways of like looking at EEG, itbecame ways of measuring it so
we could kind of see that waysof measuring it, so we could
(07:27):
kind of see that, and so thatwas really informing a lot of
what we were doing and reallythe rehab component of how do
you change that.
And we started alsounderstanding the differences
between the right and the lefthemisphere and how that
regulates parts of the body andinitially it was really just
looking at musculoskeletal andmaybe some autonomic functions
but, you know, not reallylooking at a lot of behavior and
(07:47):
cognitive abilities and youknow personality and emotional
regulation.
It was much more simplistic.
But then you know, I came homeone day and this was in 1995,
and so I've been doing theneurodiplomate thing for you,
really doing high level rehab,but mostly working with adults
(08:11):
and adolescents at the time andthere was a young woman there at
my kitchen table crying and mywife introduced me and she was a
mom of a kid with ADHD and shewas really struggling and she
was looking for something tohelp her.
She had tried everything.
She started a big group ofparents and teachers and so my
(08:34):
wife suggested that maybe shewanted to talk to me because I
knew a lot about the brain but Iknew a lot about other stuff
like nutrition and diet andother things.
And so you know, I met thiswoman and you know my wife
really kind of said to me Ithink you're supposed to help
her in some way and I don't knowwhy.
And then a couple of days laterI went and my older son it was
(08:57):
his first parent teacher meetingin his first grade and I walk
in and the teacher says firstgrade.
And I walk in and the teachersays I think your son has ADHD,
and so I saw that in my mind.
At first I felt like otherparents, like wait, first I felt
embarrassed as a professionalwho's supposed to know a lot
about neurology and the brain,and I didn't really know what
ADHD was.
(09:18):
As most parents, I felt like,well, maybe I'm to blame because
I'm working so much and nothome and lecturing on weekends.
But I also had a question thatpopped into my head, which is
well, what is it?
What is ADHD?
What is actually happening inthe brain?
And I went out and asked everyexpert that I could find you
(09:39):
know, pediatricians, pediatricneurologists, psychologists,
neuropsychologists and none ofthem could answer that question
for me.
But all of them would tell methat I couldn't do anything
about it anyway.
So I was kind of like, okay,you just told me you don't know
what it is, but you'reabsolutely sure you can't change
it.
So that's when I really doveinto and immersed myself into
(10:00):
the research and really becamekind of an obsession to me and I
, you know, really compiledevery piece of paper and data
and I went to the libraries and,you know, I eventually turned
that into a book that Ipublished in 2004, which was my
first textbook calledNeurobehavioral Disorders of
Childhood and EvolutionaryPerspective, which was, you know
(10:24):
, a 500-page textbook that I hadactually handwritten 1,300
pages with over 4,000 referencesat that point, so I really kind
of knew what I was talkingabout.
But also, along the way, I haddeveloped a program of how to
not only help my son and thisother woman's son, but many,
(10:45):
many other children, and it'sreally been a lifelong journey
of really trying to understandmore and more and more.
And you know, and we'll neverunderstand everything about the
brain, but there's, you know, alot more to understand and more
tools and what to do.
And that kind of eventually ledme to put together Disconnected
Kids, which was a book for thelay population, to try to put
(11:07):
this information in the hands ofparents so that other people
that I couldn't reach through mypractice or that other doctors
that I was training couldn'treach, could actually have
something that they could use athome.
And from the beginning it wasreally very well received and
it's been a bestseller since thebeginning.
And from the beginning it wasreally very well received and
it's been, you know, abestseller since the beginning.
And obviously, having the thirdedition, it's even more popular
(11:30):
now than it's ever been before,so it's still resonating at a
high level.
So we just came out with thethird edition.
I'm really happy about that.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
So was it the compilation of additional
research and just a reflectionof your own ongoing learning
process that led you to go?
I need to add more stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean it's a combination of Imean, you know, publishers, if a
book is selling well, they knowthat, okay, at a certain point
we need to freshen this up, youknow, like you know at a certain
point like, let's say, you'refive years in and people are
still demanding it, you know weshould actually come out with
(12:10):
probably a new edition.
Otherwise, you know, some ofthis information might be
getting stale, especially ifthey know that the person doing
it is involved in research andis trying to move forward.
But then also it was partlythat I had been doing, you know,
a ton of research over the lastfew years, and especially my
(12:31):
most productive years clinicallyand research wise really has
been, you know, since COVID andbeyond.
And so you know, for the pastfive, six years we've come out
with a lot of new research andso we wanted to include that
because we needed to update it.
And in the area of the immunesystem and you know how the
(12:52):
brain regulates the immunesystem and how that relates to
those issues there's a lot ofnew information on that.
So it was a combination ofthere's a lot of new information
published, a lot of research.
But also, you know, at acertain point you need to kind
of update things and and and.
So when you do a new editionit's got to be at least 25 new
(13:13):
material, and we have more thanthat.
We have probably 30 40 percentwith new material in this.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah do you?
Do you look back at the firstedition and kind of shake your
head Like you know what was Ithinking, or you?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
know if I could write that book with my knowledge
today, would you have done itdifferently?
To be honest with you, no, Ilook back and sometimes I say
how the hell did I write thisbook?
Because I think it was so aheadof its time, really, that now
it's actually coming into it.
And that's why, you know and Ireally had the opportunity to do
that Because when you write asecond edition or a third
(13:53):
edition, you have to go back andreread everything that you
wrote and after a while you getsick of reading your own books
over and over and over forediting purposes and all of that
.
And so you really get a chance,with fresh eyes, to go back and
say, hey, would I really?
And, to be honest with you, no,all I see is that, wow, there's
so much more.
I'd want to add to this andclarify it more and be more
(14:16):
specific, but there's nothing.
That I look back and I go, oh,you know, I shouldn't have done
that or I wish I did thatdifferently.
I just look at it now like,okay, now we definitely need to
update this.
But you know, I think it wasrelevant now and it's relevant,
and you know it was relevantthen.
So I really just feel like, youknow, we just updated it,
(14:39):
that's all we need to do.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, peter, let me toss you a question and get you
involved in the conversation.
If we pivot off the concept ofdisconnection, which, rob, I
think you explained very wellfrom a neuro standpoint, it
seems to me that there's adisconnection between what's
published in the research andwhat scientists know about how
(15:02):
the brain works, and whatclinicians know and what they
can perceive in clinicalpractice, and then there's a big
gap between those things andwhat parents understand.
How would you describe thatproblem of these pieces being
disconnected themselves?
(15:23):
And then how do you think thework that you've done with Rob
and you've done in your ownpractice starts to put those
pieces together?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think it's a great question.
I mean, I really think there isthis true disconnection I think
we've all talked about, we hearthat the difference between
clinical practice and researchis what almost like a 10-year
gap in a lot of areas.
I think we always hear that ifnot maybe 15 at best.
Started doing Rob's work earlyon.
(15:58):
I was one of his earlieradopters of his work, would go
out and do lay lectures to thepublic and you know, at the time
we were just relying on someresearch papers that were coming
out, like in the 80s and the90s, in the decades of brain.
But it wasn't until, I think,rob wrote the textbook that you
see, saw the culmination of allthis research come together in
one.
You know one book and then youknow the sameation of all this
research come together in one.
You know one book and then youknow, the same time when he
(16:20):
wrote the book, there was veryspecific research groups that
were actually doing some reallygood work in the in the field of
adhd and autism, um,specifically like marcel, just
as group from carnegie mellon,and then you had Eric Christagi
and you had Uta Furt.
So you had a really great likepioneers Martha Herbert at
Harvard and you also had JeremyShumaman at Mass General.
(16:44):
That was really doing a lot ofwork.
But it wasn't until Iencountered Rob that, all of a
sudden, you had a clinician whohad all this background in
neurologic rehabilitation, takeall these concepts and bring it
together, and he did itwonderfully in the textbooks.
But who was going to read thisreally intense textbook?
(17:05):
Some of our diehard colleaguesdid, and maybe some parents
would pick it up, but when thebook came out, that transformed
the conversation, I reallybelieve, in 2009.
Because it went from now, youknow now, where you didn't have
to.
I remember when I was firsttrying to get physicians to even
be interested in hearing abouthis model, they were like, well,
(17:26):
I'm not going to read atextbook, you know, and at that
point he really hadn't publishedany papers yet.
And so, you know, I would givethem some papers from the
researchers that I was justtalking about.
And they were like, know, Iwould give them some papers from
the researchers that I wouldtalk I was just talking about,
and they were like, yeah, I'mnot going to read those anyway,
but you give them a small book.
Okay, that was a.
That was a game changer, um,even for the parents that were
(17:48):
physicians that brought theirkids to us, um, how we even got
to Harvard and got therelationship with Harvard um, in
McLean Hospital was because ofthat book.
Okay, that you know a researcherlooked at the textbook but then
fell in love with DisconnectedKids book and said, hey, this
concept completely makes sense.
And not only does it make sense, it incorporates all the
(18:10):
different, various aspects thatwe were seeing in these children
.
Because you got to rememberthat, probably before Dr
Malolo's work, everything wasmodular based.
Okay, just like Dr Malolo wasreferencing in the brain
research, where we're looking atlesions or modular aspects, we
weren't looking at networks.
Well, he was the first personthat really took the big leap
(18:32):
and said we got to look at thisas a network of networks on both
sides of the brain.
And really, how are thesenetworks communicating together?
And so you had people in theacademic arena looking at these
as purely academic disorders orcognitive deficits or executive
deficits.
You had people in thebehavioral arena looking at it
(18:52):
purely behaviorally, especiallyin the autism community, looking
at it either eitherbehaviorally or from a
biomedical model.
These are the camps.
And then it was when, finally,dr Malone came around and said
hey, here's a unifying theory,and says this is the unifying
mechanism for all thesedisorders.
No one up to that point haddone that, and I think that's
(19:14):
what makes his research sogroundbreaking?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, and you know, rob, one of the things I love
about the book is that you I wasthinking about this last week
when I started going through theearly chapters and what you've
done is you've taken what wemight call neuron theory 101 and
translated that into justcommon language, right, so that
(19:37):
anybody can understand it.
And going back to this idea ofthe disconnection within our
professions, where you have thescientists doing their stuff and
you have clinicians doing theirstuff and then you have lay
people who struggle to findanswers for things that are
really challenging for them.
One of the big problems is thatpretty much no matter what your
(20:00):
credentials are if you're DCs,like we are medical doctors,
acupuncturists, whatever none ofus really learn the brain well
in our basic training and formost practitioners in practice,
the brain kind of remains thismysterious black box that they
know it's there, they know it'simportant, but they don't know
(20:22):
how it works.
And that's why I love the bookbecause, like you said, peter,
clinicians can and will takethat book and read it and I
would say, get a betterneurological education than what
they came out of their basictraining.
Would you guys agree with that?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Absolutely I agree, the early chapters of the book.
He did a marvelous job not onlyexplaining the foundation of
his principles, the 10principles of the functional
disconnection, but in an earlierchapter he really goes into the
neurology behind brainasymmetry and then talking about
how our sensory systems and howit's connected to the left
(21:03):
brain versus the right brain.
So I think for us, you know, alot of times we would have our
parents, our dads I always telland say in interviews that you
know dads would only say, hey,read these 30 pages.
These are the most importantpages of the book.
If you read them you'll get thefundamental what's the problem?
And then really, ultimately,how are we going to fix it, how
are we going to address it?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Right, yeah, yeah, I think you know, as you said,
steve, you know the combinationof someone who does really, you
know, high level research thatreally is a researcher, someone
that's a clinician, those twothings you don't see a lot of
that really coming together.
(21:43):
You kind of see one or theother and you know, and you can
obviously see value of beingable to have both, but then
being able to then to turn thatinto.
Also, you know how do youexplain this to the lay
population so that they canunderstand it and they can use
it.
And those three things reallyfor me, I really from a very
(22:06):
early point that was myintention, that I wanted to be
good at all of those things, andit's taken a lot of work.
I mean, you know that's why youknow I've been doing this for
over 35 years and I'm stillworking at it all the time, and
teaching was part of that and itstill is part of it, because
teaching helps to really tie itall together as well.
(22:27):
So you know all of it.
You know from a standpoint ofyou know learning stuff and, as
you said, I think the biggestthing right now for me is that
very few people really know thebrain from a functional
perspective really at all.
Even you know, the averageneurologist doesn't know it at
all.
The average even neurosurgeon,they may know some anatomy, but
(22:51):
you know.
And so that's the thing for me,because you know, when I see
patients and they come from allover the world and people that
have been almost everywhereFirst thing I ask them is
anybody ever tried to explain toyou what's happening in your
child's brain or in your brain?
And the answer is always 100percent of the time no.
And you know.
(23:11):
If I ask them, why do you thinkthat is, they're smart enough
to say, well, they probablydon't know.
And I'm like you're right, theydon't know.
And so to me that's where itstarts.
That was my first question.
Was what's happening in myson's brain?
Right, and because?
How am I going to change it?
Can I change it?
And until that's answered?
(23:32):
And so really, this has been alifelong journey to try to
understand that at the deepestlevel and really have a working
knowledge.
So that it's what I do everyday, all day, and if you were in
our office, even my staff, Imean all day.
Every day we have pictures ofthe brain.
We're talking about Brodmanareas, we're talking about
different parts of theneuroanatomy.
(23:52):
We're talking about right brainand left brain functions, and
it's what we do, and that's theonly way to master.
Anything is when it becomes partof what you do every day.
It becomes a habit and you'redevoting thousands of hours to
it, and I think that's thedifference really is that there
are a lot of bright people outthere and there are a lot of
people that know about this orthat, researchers who know a lot
(24:14):
about the brain but they'venever applied it to real life
people or patients.
You have doctors that knowclinically what to do and they
have good instincts, but theyreally don't understand what
they're doing.
You have people in thebiomedical world that understand
, you know the body and themetabolism in the immune system,
but really don't understand theinteraction between the brain
(24:36):
and the gut and people in thepsychology.
So, like Peter said, they'revery compartmentalized and I've
really devoted my career to tryto really bring it all together,
and I think that that's whatmakes the difference.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But when you put the book together in all of the
editions, somewhere along theway, you chose not to simply
write an informational book, butyou wrote it in such a way to
give people parents of childrenwith neurobehavioral disorders
some actual tools.
You have checklists, you haveinventories, you have exercises,
(25:11):
and so essentially what you didwas you equipped the
do-it-yourselfers with basicinformation that they can.
Actually, they don't have tofly halfway around the world to
see you unless they feel likethey want to.
What was the rationale toinclude all of that stuff?
Because some people would argueyou know, you're only taking
(25:32):
patients away from yourself,like as a clinician, a clinician
and you know as a businessperson, as a, as a someone who
provides health care.
Why did you, why did youinclude that portion of the book
so that people could do somethings on their own?
What was the rationale?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
there was I, you know , once I finished my textbook
and I had written 1300 pages and, you know, read over 4,000, you
know books and articles.
I knew I came out of that andthen I was seeing something that
other people weren't seeing,and then, in working with it and
developing a program, I knew Iwas getting results.
(26:10):
I also knew that we were facingan epidemic that was only going
to grow, and so my first desirewas, as a healthcare
practitioner, as somebody whowanted to make a difference in
the world, that I really hadsomething to offer a value and I
wanted to get that out there toas many people as possible.
(26:31):
And I tried to do it throughteaching.
And that was my first step andthat helped, but it wasn't
enough, and so it was like howdo I get this to a mass group of
people?
And so a book, that was itright.
Most people, as we said, arenot going to read a textbook,
they're not going to read ascientific paper.
So the other thing was and Iwanted to give them real tools,
(26:52):
because and it's funny becauseyou know we had also been
starting Brain Balance, we'vebeen starting these centers
where we were using theseprinciples, so there was a
business model as well, where wewere, you know, increasing
centers and there were peoplethat were involved and people
that invested in it.
And a lot of people, when thatbook first came out that were
(27:12):
involved in Brain Balance andPeter will remember this said
you're giving too muchinformation out, it's too much,
you're giving them the secretsauce, right?
And they said it's going towork against us.
And I said no, because peopleout there and parents, they're
really smart and what's going tohappen is that if this book
(27:36):
comes out that I'm just it'sjust like a sales pitch, right,
we're just giving them.
You know, this is the problemwith no solution, we're going to
lose people.
They're going to believe thatthis is just like bullshit.
They're not going to believeyou for real.
We needed to be fullytransparent.
We needed to be reallyauthentic and really say no.
(27:58):
This is why I'm doing it,because we really do want to
help you and we're going to giveyou all the information and if
we hold back at all, people aregoing to know it and they're
going to say this is bullshit,this isn't real.
But when they read it and theygo, wow, this person gave me
everything, they really do wantto help me and then I want to
(28:21):
see them.
I want to do more becausethey're still not going to be
100% confident that they'regoing to read through it and be
able to do it.
I really wanted them to, but Ialso knew that it would actually
build confidence andcredibility at a level that was
more important than anything andthat would gravitate into
(28:43):
people coming into the centerand to this day, in brain
balance centers and even in mypractice, the number one driver
is absolutely the book.
Because of that and that'sbecause we did not hold back and
because we gave them realresults, and I think that was
and that wasn't.
That wasn't easy because therewas some conflict in the
(29:03):
beginning over that and noteverybody agreed, but my
instincts, I think, were right.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, no, I think you were spot on with that.
Now, Peter I, if I rememberyour story, you owned the first
two, perhaps even three braincenters, the first three that
were ever built.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, we sold them together in Atlanta and so, yeah
, I remember that day when Robtold me we were writing this
book and he thought it was justgoing to really help the centers
.
But there was a lot of pushbackfrom some of the earlier owners
at the time that it wasn'tgoing, it was going to take away
from the centers.
They did completely theopposite, like Dr Malone said,
(29:42):
you know, it drove families toour centers.
They became much more educated.
So on the front end of cominginto a center for an evaluation,
they were so much more equippedto understand where we're
coming from.
Because, again here, we werechanging the paradigm here.
Okay, I mean, again, you know,for the last 20 some odd years
of his work, we're going againstthe grain.
(30:05):
I mean we're talking about, youknow, behavioral model being
the dominant model in thesedisorders and then the
pharmaceutical model.
Okay, so here you are beingfaced against two big groups.
For that people have been toldthat this is the way.
You know, the drug model is theway, or the behavioral way, and
so the transition out to thiswhole concept and to be able to
(30:29):
simply, you know, go from likethe idea that he wrote this
functional disconnectionsyndrome is to simply just say,
hey, this is a brain in balance,that literally one side of your
child's brain is developing ata faster rate and one side of
the brain is developing at aslower rate.
And the goal of our therapy isnot to enhance the more advanced
(30:52):
side, it's actually to bring upthe slower developing side to
merge and integrate with theother side of the brain.
That was a concept that parentsgot and then educators got.
We would go and we'd do.
I can't tell you how many timesin early years of when the first
edition came out I'd call DrMuller up and say, hey, I just
(31:13):
got asked to do a workshop at aschool.
I had several counties here inGeorgia that brought me in and
had me do continuing ed fortheir educational all around the
book.
And what we would do is wewould supply the whole
elementary school with boxes ofthe book for every teacher, the
principal, they all loved it.
(31:33):
And then it just made its wayfrom there to the psychologist,
to the school psychologist.
It just opened up doors that Ithink that initially we never
thought it would and and todayit's doing that and I think the
the best thing about thisedition is that the first
edition was the model of what hewas doing and what we were
(31:56):
doing in the centers.
The second edition, he was ableto publish and put in some of
the research that came from thebrain balance centers at the
time.
The new edition, what makes itso unique, is that no longer
does Dr Muller have to juststand on the work of others.
He can stand on the work of hisand he won't say that, but the
reality of it is that he'sposted, you know, published.
(32:18):
So been getting in the centers,getting in private practices
that are using the brain balancemodel, method, model, and
(32:42):
that's, you know, that's wherewe're at now.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
So yeah, and I'm glad you ended it that way, talking
about the Malila method, because, rob, if you, I wanted to talk
about the the growth of thebrain balance concept into this
new model called the MelilloMethod.
Right, and my understanding isthat the difference, especially
(33:04):
with the third edition of thebook, is that you're bringing
back into the brain balancemodel things that you developed
under the Melillo Method method.
So maybe it would be helpfulfor people listening the lay
people who are listening tomaybe do a very quick 30,000
(33:30):
foot flyover of the book interms of sections and segments,
just so that they can get anidea of really what the book is
about.
Who is it for?
What the book is about, who isit for and what type of problems
are you trying to help peopleunderstand and address?
Can you do that as succinctlyas possible, because we could
dive.
We could spend an hour talkingabout each part.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, the book was really written initially with
parents in mind and it wasdirected and geared towards, you
know, children from you know,ages of, let's say, you know,
four or five, up to, you know,18, 19, 20.
And it was really, at the time,directed towards a lot of the
kids that were like my kidsright, who were pretty high
(34:11):
functioning, that were diagnosedwith, let's say, adhd, maybe
mild autism, but also learningdisabilities, dyslexia, and it
was about, you know, trying tohelp those kids.
And initially I wanted to keepit pretty simple and, using the
principles of the functionaldisconnection you know, try to
(34:32):
keep it very low tech and verysimple and really make it
something that was reallyaffordable, that you didn't have
to use expensive equipment,keep it more in kind of an
academic education world andeven as we built the business,
we didn't want it to be in thehealth care world.
We wanted it to be really morespecial education, like
(34:55):
academics, and not use, you know, highly trained healthcare
professionals.
So it wasn't a healthcare modeland it was really designed to
use some of the scientificprinciples to change the brain,
but really geared towards kidsand higher functioning kids and,
you know, using very simplisticways.
(35:16):
But as we were getting more andmore results.
You know we'd get parents thatwould come to us and say, well,
my child doesn't speak andthey're autistic and their
behavior is really difficult andthey're really aggressive, or
they have a genetic disorder oryou know, or they have a brain
injury, or you know, what aboutmy kids that have all these
(35:38):
other metabolic issues going on?
Or what about my adult kid nowthat is 30 years old and they're
settling?
Or what about, you know, mychild that's 35 and has bipolar
disorder or schizophrenia?
And you know that wascompletely outside of the realm
of what I created in the brainbalance model and the brain
balance programming, but it wassomething that I ultimately
(36:01):
always wanted to have an impacton, and so the Melillo method
was the evolution of that andit's really a completely
different model.
I mean, if you come into myoffice and my clinic it's
completely different than if yougo into a brain balance center.
They're completely differentthan if you go into a brain
balance center.
They're completely differentmodels For me.
They're completely differentkind of patient population.
(36:22):
Most of what we work with in mypractice is really non-speaking
autistics of all different agegroups or genetic disorders or
brain injury, or adults withthings like bipolar anxiety or
brain injury, or adults withthings like bipolar anxiety
schizophrenia.
We work with infants and we usereally high tech stuff like the
cutting edge tools and it's allhealthcare practitioners and
(36:45):
it's you know, it's a much moresophisticated model, it's a much
more costly model and it's youknow.
But we're trying to really say,OK, what do we do now with the
most difficult problems in theworld that nobody really can
work with at this point, andkids and people that are violent
and aggressive?
And so that's the model I'vecreated and that's where the
(37:08):
Malula method comes into play,using a lot of lab work, a lot
of things that Peter's puttogether, you know, really
sophisticated ways of looking atlabs in a really you know,
functional, neuroimmunologicalway, and you know these are
things that have nothing to dowith brain balance.
So a lot of the underlyingscience is similar, but the way
that we've evolved into it andwhat we've evolved in into with
(37:33):
the Malila method is verydifferent than what we really go
through in that book, but we'veincorporated a lot of that new
information.
Even the way we handle some ofthe things we handled before,
like primitive reflexes, iscompletely different than what
we did before and much, muchmore effective.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Right.
So I think what I'm hearing andI actually love what I'm
hearing because if you look atall of these neurobehavioral
disorders on a scale and aspectrum, if you have an astute
parent who can pick up on theearliest changes that might
signal an underlying imbalancein how the two sides of the
(38:12):
brain are developing, they coulduse your book, do their own
work right, do their homeworkand remediate their child and
never have to go see aspecialist, right, right.
But then you do have thesenonverbal autistic children and
you do have adults who had brainimbalances that were never
(38:32):
resolved, that have neuro sickand sometimes neuropsychiatric
issues.
Those are much more complicatedand complex problems that
require a more complex andcomplicated model and
specialized knowledge andexpertise.
So you've really kind of playedboth ends right.
You've got the do-it-yourselfer, who's proactive and can take a
(38:56):
book and translate that intosomething that's really going to
make a difference on their own.
And then you have all the wayup to the point.
Now it's not just that you'veadded this to the book and
you've developed this method.
Now you're teaching cliniciansand both of you guys are doing
that right, the whole littlemethod, certification.
So why don't?
Because I know, rob, you've got15 minutes before you've got to
(39:17):
go, uh, and I would love toschedule another chat because,
like I said we I could talkabout this stuff for hours.
But can you talk a little bitabout the um, the clinician
certification and training, likewhat do you?
How does that deliver?
What could a clinician expectwhen they went through that
training?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, I think myevolution has always been, you
know, to get deeper and deeperand deeper and deeper.
And for me, I learned early on,when I started talking about
even when I was, you know, firstwriting, first writing my
textbook, and I started workingwith kids and I started
lecturing to parents.
I remember the first lecture Igave was terrible, I mean.
(40:00):
I remember one of my staffmembers.
I came and I thought it wasgreat, of course, and I said you
know, what do you think?
And they said, well, I don'tknow if they understood most of
the words that you used.
And I said, like I don't knowif they understood most of the
words that you used.
And I said, like, what words?
Like I use simple words.
They're like what did I use?
I didn't.
And they said, well, even likecognition, most people don't
(40:21):
know what that means.
I'm like, oh, okay, and so itwas something, you know, I
really worked hard at and I kindof knew.
You know, einstein said that theultimate sophistication is
simplicity, and I knew that.
You know, the only way toreally explain it simple is that
you really have to know it.
(40:42):
I mean, you have to own it foryou to take the most complex
concepts in all of neuroscienceand maybe in all of science.
You know, when you talk abouthow the brain works, it doesn't
get much more complex and youreally need to understand it at
the highest level to be able toreally understand what you need
(41:05):
to do.
But you also need to understandit at the highest level to try
to really make it simple.
I mean, we all know people andI won't mention names or
anything who purposely go outthere and speak in super
sophisticated terms that nobodyunderstands what the hell
they're saying and people arelike, wow, that guy's really
(41:25):
smart, right.
But to me, when anybody has totalk like that, it's because
they really don't know it, right, they really don't know it that
well, and so all of this hasbeen part of that In my course.
It's where I can really try togo nuts, meaning where I can
really get deep into it withpeople in an audience.
You know, listen, I'd love tosit in front of an audience that
(41:48):
has 10,000 people or 5,000.
But the fact is, you know, forreally sophisticated information
, you're going to have a smalleraudience.
That's more sophisticated,right, and they're going to
really appreciate it.
And we get these people that mywife, you know, likes to refer
to us as your neuro nerd friends.
(42:08):
You know that we get togetherand we want to nerd out, like
really at the deepest level,right, and Peter's been doing
that with the immune, with theimmune world now, and so you
know we want to.
But even that, you know, we, wehave to constantly remind people
that you know, in a 150 hourcourse, even though we're
getting at a fellowship level,it's high level.
(42:31):
We want to still.
It's still relatively simplefrom where we can take this and
there's, you know, a lot moresteps and there's a lot more
training.
That can go on.
But we're trying to give peoplereally good understanding,
working knowledge of the brain.
But you know, and that's reallywhere we've been at over the
past few years, it's 10 modulesand it really cuts on looking at
(42:55):
specific conditions but at thesame time building a really good
working knowledge of the brainand the nervous system and the
immune system and theinteraction, and we give people
real tools about how to go outthere.
And we have parents that takethe course and actually can go
through it and even becomecertified.
But you know, it's reallysomething that is meant to give
(43:16):
people really high-level toolsto be able to go out there and
really make a big impact.
But there's a lot of otherlevels that it can get to.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, yeah and I'm thinking just with the 10
minutes we have left before youhave to go.
Instead of diving into theclinician side of things, let's
keep it on the layperson side.
Peter, with all of yourexperience and I know that
you've worked both with thebrain balance model and now,
obviously, the malignal methodmodel it's hard to say.
(43:47):
What are some of the commonpatterns that you see when you
evaluate a child that issomewhere on that spectrum,
ranging from attention deficitwhatever to really complicated
autistic type behaviors.
What are some of thecommonalities you see in terms
(44:08):
of left right brainfunctionality that need to be
remediated?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
sure.
I mean, well, primary numberone is the primitive reflexes.
I mean you're going to see them.
Okay, you're going all right.
So let me just pause you thereand say let's define that,
because let's just assumewhoever's listening has no idea
what that is so these automatedsteps that happen
developmentally in the firstyear of life, that there's a
sequence of reflexes that arecoming online in the womb, that
(44:37):
assist the birthing process andthen set up the developmental
stages of the brain and thecentral nervous system over the
course of the first 12 to 15months, and that by around that
end of 12 to 15 months, thosespecific reflexes, these
primitive reflexes because theystarted such an early part of
(44:58):
development, and they are allfound in the brainstem.
So, looking at that particularprimitive part of our brain
again, they all should beinhibited by that end of the
first year and so, if they'reretained, what they basically do
simplicity, suspend thedevelopment of the brain and in
most instances it's going toprobably suspend the development
(45:21):
of the right side of the brain.
Okay, so when we look atchildren that have symptoms of
inattention or hyperactivity orany type of obsessive,
compulsive or motor tics, oreven Tourette's social,
pragmatic type of problems,where they have social
communication issue, you know,as they age up they don't
(45:43):
necessarily have what we callpragmatic language or the
conversational aspect oflanguage.
They may actually speak and usevocabulary and spell really
well because of the bias of theleft brain, but in terms of
understanding language orcomprehending language, which is
a primary skill of the rightbrain.
So what happens in all thesedisorders is that we see these
(46:06):
retained primitive reflexes.
Now the severity of the brainimbalance, the severity of the
difference between thedevelopment of one hemisphere to
the other, is probably alsogoing to indicate the severity
of the primitive reflexes.
If the primitive reflexes arereally severe, then the
immaturity in the brain is goingto be really great.
(46:28):
Now what we'll see in a lot ofchildren is that they'll be
blessed because of some of thehemispheric traits that are
actually passed on by familymembers that allow them to have
an acceleration of of one sideversus the other.
This is why we really believethat autism is what we refer to
as a geek syndrome.
Ok, that we see these veryexceptional left hemispheric
(46:51):
bias skills.
Even in all the non-speakersthat Dr Malone and I are working
with right now.
They all have these tremendousleft brain skills that we're
actually seeing from them, andso that would be number one is
the retention of the primitivereflexes.
Number two would be muscle tone.
Most of these children actuallyhave various hypotonia um.
(47:14):
Some of them have globalhypotonia low muscle tone
globally, um, but then we'll seepatterns of this muscle tone,
mostly in posterior compartmentsof of the of the muscle system,
okay.
And then, thirdly, I would lookat the vestibular system okay,
and looking at how they haveaberrancies in vestibular output
(47:34):
from both vestibular systems.
Either they may have, in mostinstances, hypoactivation of the
vestibular system, low outputof their vestibular
functionality.
Some children will have hyper,but the majority of kids will
have hypo.
And fourth, we would look at alot of the oculomotor
development of their eye muscles, okay, and ability to have
(47:55):
coordinated eye muscles in basiceye tracking or rapid eye
movements, or the ability toconverge or diverge their eyes.
So, broadly speaking, I wouldsay those four major areas that
we're going to see are going tobe delayed.
And then, as they begin to,let's say, develop the two and
three and four, when we shouldsee more of their cognition
(48:19):
developing, their cognitivepowers developing or their
social pragmatic developmenthappening around that, let's say
28 months, beyond the 36 months, the 50 months, that's when
we'll start seeing that delay inthose functions as these kids
are entering into, let's say,preschool, pre-k.
But you're going to see theprimitive reflexes, the low
(48:43):
muscle tone, the hypo vestibularfunction, the failure of eye
muscle tracking.
I mean, those things aredefinitely going to be seen
below 36 months of life.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, and I would imagine each case presents
slightly differently, eventhough the general pattern might
be similar.
Rob, I know you need to go in afew minutes, but with your
perspective, with this work thatyou've done, that the brain is
(49:14):
massively interconnected andinterdependent.
If we look at the role thatthese primitive reflexes play in
the developmental hierarchy andthe fact that if these
primitive reflexes are notabolished, the brain delays its
development, would you say, like, if we look at the Pareto
principle, you know 80% of youroutput comes from 20% of your
(49:38):
work.
How much value can you derivefrom simply identifying routine
primitive reflexes and thendoing the work to abolish them,
taking away that obstacle?
Would you say that thattranslates into 80% of your
results, or is that just stepone?
But there's an awful lot ofmore work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, the way I look at it, you know, steve, is more
and more I realized that there'sinterrelationship, which is
probably the two foundingprinciples.
One is what we call verticalintegration, right, the idea of
bottom-up development and thentop-down integration, and that
there's this progression whichis led and started by these
primitive reflexes and then theyshould go away and all of that,
(50:25):
and then at the same timethere's a differentiation, with
the right brain developing inthe first three years
predominantly, and then the leftbrain developing in the first
three years predominantly andthen the left brain developing
in the next three years, so thatwe get this differentiation and
the right and the left brain,and as they mature they become
more and more specialized andmore and more different and more
demand to make sure that theyare integrating.
(50:47):
It becomes harder and harder tointegrate them, and so those
two things are intimatelyinvolved with one another.
So for me, you know, gettingrid of the reflexes is
foundational.
If you don't get rid of thereflexes, we're never going to
be able to fully integrate thebrain.
But if we don't fully integratethe brain or work to integrate
the brain, we're never going tofully get rid of these reflexes.
(51:09):
Those two things are intimately, and I think that's where I see
some failures, meaning somepeople will come in and they've
done years of primitive reflexwork with other people and the
primitive reflexes is stillthere and it's very frustrating
for them at a strong level.
Then I see other people thatmight have been going to people
that were trying to do somebrain integration and they may
(51:31):
have gotten some results butthey didn't get complete
resolution of the issues or asmuch result as they thought and
it's because they didn't look atthe primitive reflexes and they
didn't deal with that.
Both those things areintimately important.
And then understanding theneuroimmune piece, understanding
the autonomic nervous system,the balance of the sympathetic
and parasympathetic that is socritical, and all of those
(51:55):
things are so intimately tied toone another that you know
that's the way I look at itthose things have to go together
.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Yeah, and so just to maybe encapsulate on the
therapeutic side, the moresuccessful, the most successful
approach is multimodal, right?
It's not just doing theexercises to get rid of the
primitive reflex, it might beharnessing the potential of
(52:23):
light or sound or movement oreven cognitive challenges, right
?
Speaker 2 (52:29):
So it's not just one thing, yeah, and doing it all
together right, so it's not justone, yeah, and doing it all
together right, because thewhole thing, the brain works and
networks work in simultaneity,meaning that things have to
happen simultaneously, all thesethings have to happen together,
which is one of the things Ithink that was unique, that I
brought to.
This was the idea ofco-activation or what we called
(52:50):
same time integration in thebook, meaning that it wasn't
just about, you know, doing eyeexercises or light stimulation,
or sound, or smell, or movementor cognitive.
It was about doing all of themtogether with in a very specific
, directed way, you know, notjust generally stimulating but
(53:10):
really trying to activatecertain things and inhibit
others, but doing it alltogether.
That is also a critical,critical piece.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, and again I want to honor your time
commitments.
Parents of children who havethese neurobehavioral challenges
, and how much hope is there foran adult who may have had these
challenges unresolved fordecades?
Speaker 2 (53:39):
I think there's great hope.
I mean, that's what we showevery day.
I mean we'll do 10,000 officevisits this year in my one
office and we're opening upanother office in New York City
because, you know, the demand isso great, because the results
are so great.
People aren't flying all overthe world and coming to see us
at that level if we're notgetting really big changes.
And so we see it every day andwe've proven it now in the
(54:02):
research as well.
I think hope is great as longas people start learning this
stuff and waking up.
And you know we're stuck inthese old models.
There's a great paper recentlythat I just went through.
I just did an iathner lecturethe other day and I talked about
how this paper came out.
Really, we can talk about itnext time.
It's so cool the relationshipbetween hypermobility and loss
(54:25):
and underdevelopment ofproprioception and how that
relates to emotional feelingsand interoception and
neurodivergence.
Right, it was reallyfascinating.
But what they say in it is thatyou know, traditional medicine
is a blunt instrument andtraditional psychology,
cognitive behavioral therapy.
(54:47):
And this is from, you know, theJournal of the Royal Academy of
London.
This is one of the mostprestigious journals in the
world and they're saying that,you know, understanding these
things.
We need to understand it at arefined level because right now,
you know, all those other toolsright now are blunt instruments
and unless we understand thisand start to adopt these things
(55:10):
which you know, we're fightingtraditional medicine,
traditional pharma, traditionaleducation, traditional
psychiatry and psychology.
If these things become adoptedand people really, you know,
move forward, I think there'stremendous hope to really stop
this progression of theseepidemics and change things and
really impact mental health in ahuge way.
(55:31):
And if we don't, it's justgoing to get worse and worse and
worse and it's going to bedevastating.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yeah, which is why it's so important to get the
message out that there areanswers, you can get results and
, as a result, you can restorehope that your quality of life
can be something that'sworthwhile.
Absolutely yeah, peter, anyfinal words.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
I think he did a great job summering it, so we're
good.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yeah, all right, I'll reach out to you guys and we'll
set something up and we'llrecord part two, and I feel like
we just got it started rollingon the really nerdy, cool stuff
that we all love, so let's makesome time to come back and
finish that conversation off.
Thank you, guys.
We really truly appreciate yourtime.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Thank you, buddy, it was great.
Okay, thank you, bye, We'll seeyou next time.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Funkbed Nation podcast.
I'm your host, dr Steve Noswery.
The views and opinionsexpressed by my guests in this
podcast are not necessarilyconsistent with my own views and
opinions.
However, I do my best to berespectful of their views and
opinions as they express them,even if they differ from my own.
(00:24):
Now let's get to the podcast.
Hey guys, Dr Noseworthy here.
Before we get started with theinterview, I want to say a few
things about my two guests today, who are Dr Rob Melillo and Dr
Peter Skier.
I'm just going to read you fromDr Melillo's website to give
(00:45):
you a little bit about hisbackground, and we'll talk about
how he and Dr Skier have workedtogether for many, many years.
But in 2004, dr Melillopublished Neurobehavioral
Disorders of Childhood anEvolutionary Perspective, which
was a working theory textbook ondevelopmental disabilities, and
this book continues to beutilized at both a graduate and
(01:09):
undergraduate level inuniversities around the world.
Dr Milillo's bestselling bookin 2009, called Disconnected
Kids, catapulted him to nationalprominence and greeted with
overwhelming positive response.
The thesis of that book servesas the foundation for the work
being done at brain balancecenters around the country, and
(01:30):
we're talking today about thethird edition of his book
Disconnected Kits.
Now he's got a very richbackground as an author, a
researcher, a clinician, anentrepreneur, and so we'll just
leave it there as hisintroduction.
Dr Peter Skyer you mayrecognize his name.
I did a two-part interview withhim not long ago where we
(01:52):
talked about something calledimmunosception, which is a
subcomponent of a larger conceptof the brain called
interoception.
And Dr Peter Skyer is afantastic clinician in his own
right.
But he's been associated withDr Malolo and his work for many,
many years, in fact, being theowner of, I believe, the first
(02:12):
three brain balance centers whenthat kicked off back at its
origin point.
Since then he's become let'scall it and these are my words
Dr Melillo's right-hand man, soto speak, and he teaches at a
postgraduate level with DrMelillo in what is called the
Melillo Method, which is theupgraded version, if you will,
(02:36):
of how to deal withneurobehavioral disorders and
other neurological conditionsthat we see quite commonly in
clinical practice from acutting-edge science perspective
.
And so I'll leave theintroduction there.
Let's get back to the interview.
I kind of want to split theconversation, as best we can,
(02:57):
into two segments.
One is Rob to talk about thethird edition of your book,
disconnected Kids.
Is, rob, to talk about thethird edition of your book,
disconnected Kids?
And, you know, probably branchthat out into a broader
conversation aboutneurobehavioral disorders and,
you know, not necessarilyconfining it to children and
adolescents, but talking aboutsome of the things that we might
(03:17):
see in adults that could bestemming from issues that they
had when they were younger.
But then, you know, maybe turnthe conversation into a little
bit more of a clinicalconversation.
And you know, last time Peterand I talked, we talked about
interoception andimmunoreception and the role of
the brain in controlling immunemechanics, and I think that
(03:39):
that's just a fascinating topicand it's, you know, certainly
something that we see inclinical practice all the time
issues with those functions, andwe'll cover as best as we can.
I mean, if you're feeling kindof generous, we could always
split this into two differentsessions and I'm certainly more
than willing to do that.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
So, rob, let's talk about yourbook.
(04:00):
You wrote the first edition Ithink it was 2009.
Correct, and I did get thatbook and I read it then, and
I've just finished reading thethird edition, which I don't
think is published yet.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It just came out, on the 6th of August, it did.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, congratulations on that.
And, for those who might notknow, we're in an era now where
pretty much anybody can publisha book right, because the whole
self-publishing engine is outthere.
But it's another thing to bepicked up by a publishing house.
That's, I think, a lot harderthan it was 20 years ago, and
(04:36):
the fact that you are publishedby an actual publisher and now
you're on your third edition,and now you're on your third
edition, I think, speaks volumesto the quality of the work as
well as the value that you bringto families that are struggling
with kids and family membersthat have neurobehavioral
(04:57):
disorders.
So why don't you take just aminute to describe the concept
of disconnected kids?
And you can go back to what we,you know, what we all call the
origin story, like why did youwrite the first book, what led
to that, and maybe walk us up ingeneral terms to now.
We have a third edition andyou've, you know, added quite a
bit of new material to that.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, you know, my publisheris actually Penguin, which is
the largest publisher in theworld, and I was told when I did
publish my book for the firsttime that getting a book
published by a major publisherwas the hardest thing to do in
any form of media, meaning itwas harder than getting, like, a
record deal, it was harder thangetting a movie deal, you know
(05:40):
it is, and it's even harder now,especially for fiction.
But yeah, so you know, and thisis actually my third edition of
this book, and then I havethree other books with Penguin,
so you know it's been reallyblessed that I have that, and
also the book is translated into18 languages around the world.
(06:01):
And so you know it really allstarted with when I, you know,
when I was working, you knowdeveloping work and teaching
neurology and doing my neurostuff, and you know I was
working a lot with adults and wewere.
You know it was the early 90sand the 90s was a decade of the
(06:21):
brain, according to BillClinton's declaration, and so
all this new research was comingout and I was really immersed
in it because I was teaching itand I was starting to do some
brain research and the idea oflooking at the way the brain
develops and how it works andhow it connects and communicates
and the idea of functionalconnectivity really became a
(06:43):
thing then and the idea thatthere weren't really single
lesions in the brain and thatthere weren't really a lot of
genetic mutations going on butthat really there were just
problems with the way that thebrain was communicating, the way
networks were connecting andcommunicating with one another
and something was disruptingthat and it wasn't completely
(07:03):
clear what that was or how ithappened.
But it was more and more clearthat that was it.
And with new imaging techniqueslike fMRI and PET scan and
SPECT scans andmagnoencephalography and better
ways of like looking at EEG, itbecame ways of measuring it so
we could kind of see that waysof measuring it, so we could
(07:27):
kind of see that, and so thatwas really informing a lot of
what we were doing and reallythe rehab component of how do
you change that.
And we started alsounderstanding the differences
between the right and the lefthemisphere and how that
regulates parts of the body andinitially it was really just
looking at musculoskeletal andmaybe some autonomic functions
but, you know, not reallylooking at a lot of behavior and
(07:47):
cognitive abilities and youknow personality and emotional
regulation.
It was much more simplistic.
But then you know, I came homeone day and this was in 1995,
and so I've been doing theneurodiplomate thing for you,
really doing high level rehab,but mostly working with adults
(08:11):
and adolescents at the time andthere was a young woman there at
my kitchen table crying and mywife introduced me and she was a
mom of a kid with ADHD and shewas really struggling and she
was looking for something tohelp her.
She had tried everything.
She started a big group ofparents and teachers and so my
(08:34):
wife suggested that maybe shewanted to talk to me because I
knew a lot about the brain but Iknew a lot about other stuff
like nutrition and diet andother things.
And so you know, I met thiswoman and you know my wife
really kind of said to me Ithink you're supposed to help
her in some way and I don't knowwhy.
And then a couple of days laterI went and my older son it was
(08:57):
his first parent teacher meetingin his first grade and I walk
in and the teacher says firstgrade.
And I walk in and the teachersays I think your son has ADHD,
and so I saw that in my mind.
At first I felt like otherparents, like wait, first I felt
embarrassed as a professionalwho's supposed to know a lot
about neurology and the brain,and I didn't really know what
ADHD was.
(09:18):
As most parents, I felt like,well, maybe I'm to blame because
I'm working so much and nothome and lecturing on weekends.
But I also had a question thatpopped into my head, which is
well, what is it?
What is ADHD?
What is actually happening inthe brain?
And I went out and asked everyexpert that I could find you
(09:39):
know, pediatricians, pediatricneurologists, psychologists,
neuropsychologists and none ofthem could answer that question
for me.
But all of them would tell methat I couldn't do anything
about it anyway.
So I was kind of like, okay,you just told me you don't know
what it is, but you'reabsolutely sure you can't change
it.
So that's when I really doveinto and immersed myself into
(10:00):
the research and really becamekind of an obsession to me and I
, you know, really compiledevery piece of paper and data
and I went to the libraries and,you know, I eventually turned
that into a book that Ipublished in 2004, which was my
first textbook calledNeurobehavioral Disorders of
Childhood and EvolutionaryPerspective, which was, you know
(10:24):
, a 500-page textbook that I hadactually handwritten 1,300
pages with over 4,000 referencesat that point, so I really kind
of knew what I was talkingabout.
But also, along the way, I haddeveloped a program of how to
not only help my son and thisother woman's son, but many,
(10:45):
many other children, and it'sreally been a lifelong journey
of really trying to understandmore and more and more.
And you know, and we'll neverunderstand everything about the
brain, but there's, you know, alot more to understand and more
tools and what to do.
And that kind of eventually ledme to put together Disconnected
Kids, which was a book for thelay population, to try to put
(11:07):
this information in the hands ofparents so that other people
that I couldn't reach through mypractice or that other doctors
that I was training couldn'treach, could actually have
something that they could use athome.
And from the beginning it wasreally very well received and
it's been a bestseller since thebeginning.
And from the beginning it wasreally very well received and
it's been, you know, abestseller since the beginning.
And obviously, having the thirdedition, it's even more popular
(11:30):
now than it's ever been before,so it's still resonating at a
high level.
So we just came out with thethird edition.
I'm really happy about that.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
So was it the compilation of additional
research and just a reflectionof your own ongoing learning
process that led you to go?
I need to add more stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean it's a combination of Imean, you know, publishers, if a
book is selling well, they knowthat, okay, at a certain point
we need to freshen this up, youknow, like you know at a certain
point like, let's say, you'refive years in and people are
still demanding it, you know weshould actually come out with
(12:10):
probably a new edition.
Otherwise, you know, some ofthis information might be
getting stale, especially ifthey know that the person doing
it is involved in research andis trying to move forward.
But then also it was partlythat I had been doing, you know,
a ton of research over the lastfew years, and especially my
(12:31):
most productive years clinicallyand research wise really has
been, you know, since COVID andbeyond.
And so you know, for the pastfive, six years we've come out
with a lot of new research andso we wanted to include that
because we needed to update it.
And in the area of the immunesystem and you know how the
(12:52):
brain regulates the immunesystem and how that relates to
those issues there's a lot ofnew information on that.
So it was a combination ofthere's a lot of new information
published, a lot of research.
But also, you know, at acertain point you need to kind
of update things and and and.
So when you do a new editionit's got to be at least 25 new
(13:13):
material, and we have more thanthat.
We have probably 30 40 percentwith new material in this.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah do you?
Do you look back at the firstedition and kind of shake your
head Like you know what was Ithinking, or you?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
know if I could write that book with my knowledge
today, would you have done itdifferently?
To be honest with you, no, Ilook back and sometimes I say
how the hell did I write thisbook?
Because I think it was so aheadof its time, really, that now
it's actually coming into it.
And that's why, you know and Ireally had the opportunity to do
that Because when you write asecond edition or a third
(13:53):
edition, you have to go back andreread everything that you
wrote and after a while you getsick of reading your own books
over and over and over forediting purposes and all of that
.
And so you really get a chance,with fresh eyes, to go back and
say, hey, would I really?
And, to be honest with you, no,all I see is that, wow, there's
so much more.
I'd want to add to this andclarify it more and be more
(14:16):
specific, but there's nothing.
That I look back and I go, oh,you know, I shouldn't have done
that or I wish I did thatdifferently.
I just look at it now like,okay, now we definitely need to
update this.
But you know, I think it wasrelevant now and it's relevant,
and you know it was relevantthen.
So I really just feel like, youknow, we just updated it,
(14:39):
that's all we need to do.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, peter, let me toss you a question and get you
involved in the conversation.
If we pivot off the concept ofdisconnection, which, rob, I
think you explained very wellfrom a neuro standpoint, it
seems to me that there's adisconnection between what's
published in the research andwhat scientists know about how
(15:02):
the brain works, and whatclinicians know and what they
can perceive in clinicalpractice, and then there's a big
gap between those things andwhat parents understand.
How would you describe thatproblem of these pieces being
disconnected themselves?
(15:23):
And then how do you think thework that you've done with Rob
and you've done in your ownpractice starts to put those
pieces together?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think it's a great question.
I mean, I really think there isthis true disconnection I think
we've all talked about, we hearthat the difference between
clinical practice and researchis what almost like a 10-year
gap in a lot of areas.
I think we always hear that ifnot maybe 15 at best.
Started doing Rob's work earlyon.
(15:58):
I was one of his earlieradopters of his work, would go
out and do lay lectures to thepublic and you know, at the time
we were just relying on someresearch papers that were coming
out, like in the 80s and the90s, in the decades of brain.
But it wasn't until, I think,rob wrote the textbook that you
see, saw the culmination of allthis research come together in
one.
You know one book and then youknow the sameation of all this
research come together in one.
You know one book and then youknow, the same time when he
(16:20):
wrote the book, there was veryspecific research groups that
were actually doing some reallygood work in the in the field of
adhd and autism, um,specifically like marcel, just
as group from carnegie mellon,and then you had Eric Christagi
and you had Uta Furt.
So you had a really great likepioneers Martha Herbert at
Harvard and you also had JeremyShumaman at Mass General.
(16:44):
That was really doing a lot ofwork.
But it wasn't until Iencountered Rob that, all of a
sudden, you had a clinician whohad all this background in
neurologic rehabilitation, takeall these concepts and bring it
together, and he did itwonderfully in the textbooks.
But who was going to read thisreally intense textbook?
(17:05):
Some of our diehard colleaguesdid, and maybe some parents
would pick it up, but when thebook came out, that transformed
the conversation, I reallybelieve, in 2009.
Because it went from now, youknow now, where you didn't have
to.
I remember when I was firsttrying to get physicians to even
be interested in hearing abouthis model, they were like, well,
(17:26):
I'm not going to read atextbook, you know, and at that
point he really hadn't publishedany papers yet.
And so, you know, I would givethem some papers from the
researchers that I was justtalking about.
And they were like, know, Iwould give them some papers from
the researchers that I wouldtalk I was just talking about,
and they were like, yeah, I'mnot going to read those anyway,
but you give them a small book.
Okay, that was a.
That was a game changer, um,even for the parents that were
(17:48):
physicians that brought theirkids to us, um, how we even got
to Harvard and got therelationship with Harvard um, in
McLean Hospital was because ofthat book.
Okay, that you know a researcherlooked at the textbook but then
fell in love with DisconnectedKids book and said, hey, this
concept completely makes sense.
And not only does it make sense, it incorporates all the
(18:10):
different, various aspects thatwe were seeing in these children
.
Because you got to rememberthat, probably before Dr
Malolo's work, everything wasmodular based.
Okay, just like Dr Malolo wasreferencing in the brain
research, where we're looking atlesions or modular aspects, we
weren't looking at networks.
Well, he was the first personthat really took the big leap
(18:32):
and said we got to look at thisas a network of networks on both
sides of the brain.
And really, how are thesenetworks communicating together?
And so you had people in theacademic arena looking at these
as purely academic disorders orcognitive deficits or executive
deficits.
You had people in thebehavioral arena looking at it
(18:52):
purely behaviorally, especiallyin the autism community, looking
at it either eitherbehaviorally or from a
biomedical model.
These are the camps.
And then it was when, finally,dr Malone came around and said
hey, here's a unifying theory,and says this is the unifying
mechanism for all thesedisorders.
No one up to that point haddone that, and I think that's
(19:14):
what makes his research sogroundbreaking?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, and you know, rob, one of the things I love
about the book is that you I wasthinking about this last week
when I started going through theearly chapters and what you've
done is you've taken what wemight call neuron theory 101 and
translated that into justcommon language, right, so that
(19:37):
anybody can understand it.
And going back to this idea ofthe disconnection within our
professions, where you have thescientists doing their stuff and
you have clinicians doing theirstuff and then you have lay
people who struggle to findanswers for things that are
really challenging for them.
One of the big problems is thatpretty much no matter what your
(20:00):
credentials are if you're DCs,like we are medical doctors,
acupuncturists, whatever none ofus really learn the brain well
in our basic training and formost practitioners in practice,
the brain kind of remains thismysterious black box that they
know it's there, they know it'simportant, but they don't know
(20:22):
how it works.
And that's why I love the bookbecause, like you said, peter,
clinicians can and will takethat book and read it and I
would say, get a betterneurological education than what
they came out of their basictraining.
Would you guys agree with that?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Absolutely I agree, the early chapters of the book.
He did a marvelous job not onlyexplaining the foundation of
his principles, the 10principles of the functional
disconnection, but in an earlierchapter he really goes into the
neurology behind brainasymmetry and then talking about
how our sensory systems and howit's connected to the left
(21:03):
brain versus the right brain.
So I think for us, you know, alot of times we would have our
parents, our dads I always telland say in interviews that you
know dads would only say, hey,read these 30 pages.
These are the most importantpages of the book.
If you read them you'll get thefundamental what's the problem?
And then really, ultimately,how are we going to fix it, how
are we going to address it?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Right, yeah, yeah, I think you know, as you said,
steve, you know the combinationof someone who does really, you
know, high level research thatreally is a researcher, someone
that's a clinician, those twothings you don't see a lot of
that really coming together.
(21:43):
You kind of see one or theother and you know, and you can
obviously see value of beingable to have both, but then
being able to then to turn thatinto.
Also, you know how do youexplain this to the lay
population so that they canunderstand it and they can use
it.
And those three things reallyfor me, I really from a very
(22:06):
early point that was myintention, that I wanted to be
good at all of those things, andit's taken a lot of work.
I mean, you know that's why youknow I've been doing this for
over 35 years and I'm stillworking at it all the time, and
teaching was part of that and itstill is part of it, because
teaching helps to really tie itall together as well.
(22:27):
So you know all of it.
You know from a standpoint ofyou know learning stuff and, as
you said, I think the biggestthing right now for me is that
very few people really know thebrain from a functional
perspective really at all.
Even you know, the averageneurologist doesn't know it at
all.
The average even neurosurgeon,they may know some anatomy, but
(22:51):
you know.
And so that's the thing for me,because you know, when I see
patients and they come from allover the world and people that
have been almost everywhereFirst thing I ask them is
anybody ever tried to explain toyou what's happening in your
child's brain or in your brain?
And the answer is always 100percent of the time no.
And you know.
(23:11):
If I ask them, why do you thinkthat is, they're smart enough
to say, well, they probablydon't know.
And I'm like you're right, theydon't know.
And so to me that's where itstarts.
That was my first question.
Was what's happening in myson's brain?
Right, and because?
How am I going to change it?
Can I change it?
And until that's answered?
(23:32):
And so really, this has been alifelong journey to try to
understand that at the deepestlevel and really have a working
knowledge.
So that it's what I do everyday, all day, and if you were in
our office, even my staff, Imean all day.
Every day we have pictures ofthe brain.
We're talking about Brodmanareas, we're talking about
different parts of theneuroanatomy.
(23:52):
We're talking about right brainand left brain functions, and
it's what we do, and that's theonly way to master.
Anything is when it becomes partof what you do every day.
It becomes a habit and you'redevoting thousands of hours to
it, and I think that's thedifference really is that there
are a lot of bright people outthere and there are a lot of
people that know about this orthat, researchers who know a lot
(24:14):
about the brain but they'venever applied it to real life
people or patients.
You have doctors that knowclinically what to do and they
have good instincts, but theyreally don't understand what
they're doing.
You have people in thebiomedical world that understand
, you know the body and themetabolism in the immune system,
but really don't understand theinteraction between the brain
(24:36):
and the gut and people in thepsychology.
So, like Peter said, they'revery compartmentalized and I've
really devoted my career to tryto really bring it all together,
and I think that that's whatmakes the difference.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But when you put the book together in all of the
editions, somewhere along theway, you chose not to simply
write an informational book, butyou wrote it in such a way to
give people parents of childrenwith neurobehavioral disorders
some actual tools.
You have checklists, you haveinventories, you have exercises,
(25:11):
and so essentially what you didwas you equipped the
do-it-yourselfers with basicinformation that they can.
Actually, they don't have tofly halfway around the world to
see you unless they feel likethey want to.
What was the rationale toinclude all of that stuff?
Because some people would argueyou know, you're only taking
(25:32):
patients away from yourself,like as a clinician, a clinician
and you know as a businessperson, as a, as a someone who
provides health care.
Why did you, why did youinclude that portion of the book
so that people could do somethings on their own?
What was the rationale?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
there was I, you know , once I finished my textbook
and I had written 1300 pages and, you know, read over 4,000, you
know books and articles.
I knew I came out of that andthen I was seeing something that
other people weren't seeing,and then, in working with it and
developing a program, I knew Iwas getting results.
(26:10):
I also knew that we were facingan epidemic that was only going
to grow, and so my first desirewas, as a healthcare
practitioner, as somebody whowanted to make a difference in
the world, that I really hadsomething to offer a value and I
wanted to get that out there toas many people as possible.
(26:31):
And I tried to do it throughteaching.
And that was my first step andthat helped, but it wasn't
enough, and so it was like howdo I get this to a mass group of
people?
And so a book, that was itright.
Most people, as we said, arenot going to read a textbook,
they're not going to read ascientific paper.
So the other thing was and Iwanted to give them real tools,
(26:52):
because and it's funny becauseyou know we had also been
starting Brain Balance, we'vebeen starting these centers
where we were using theseprinciples, so there was a
business model as well, where wewere, you know, increasing
centers and there were peoplethat were involved and people
that invested in it.
And a lot of people, when thatbook first came out that were
(27:12):
involved in Brain Balance andPeter will remember this said
you're giving too muchinformation out, it's too much,
you're giving them the secretsauce, right?
And they said it's going towork against us.
And I said no, because peopleout there and parents, they're
really smart and what's going tohappen is that if this book
(27:36):
comes out that I'm just it'sjust like a sales pitch, right,
we're just giving them.
You know, this is the problemwith no solution, we're going to
lose people.
They're going to believe thatthis is just like bullshit.
They're not going to believeyou for real.
We needed to be fullytransparent.
We needed to be reallyauthentic and really say no.
(27:58):
This is why I'm doing it,because we really do want to
help you and we're going to giveyou all the information and if
we hold back at all, people aregoing to know it and they're
going to say this is bullshit,this isn't real.
But when they read it and theygo, wow, this person gave me
everything, they really do wantto help me and then I want to
(28:21):
see them.
I want to do more becausethey're still not going to be
100% confident that they'regoing to read through it and be
able to do it.
I really wanted them to, but Ialso knew that it would actually
build confidence andcredibility at a level that was
more important than anything andthat would gravitate into
(28:43):
people coming into the centerand to this day, in brain
balance centers and even in mypractice, the number one driver
is absolutely the book.
Because of that and that'sbecause we did not hold back and
because we gave them realresults, and I think that was
and that wasn't.
That wasn't easy because therewas some conflict in the
(29:03):
beginning over that and noteverybody agreed, but my
instincts, I think, were right.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, no, I think you were spot on with that.
Now, Peter I, if I rememberyour story, you owned the first
two, perhaps even three braincenters, the first three that
were ever built.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, we sold them together in Atlanta and so, yeah
, I remember that day when Robtold me we were writing this
book and he thought it was justgoing to really help the centers
.
But there was a lot of pushbackfrom some of the earlier owners
at the time that it wasn'tgoing, it was going to take away
from the centers.
They did completely theopposite, like Dr Malone said,
(29:42):
you know, it drove families toour centers.
They became much more educated.
So on the front end of cominginto a center for an evaluation,
they were so much more equippedto understand where we're
coming from.
Because, again here, we werechanging the paradigm here.
Okay, I mean, again, you know,for the last 20 some odd years
of his work, we're going againstthe grain.
(30:05):
I mean we're talking about, youknow, behavioral model being
the dominant model in thesedisorders and then the
pharmaceutical model.
Okay, so here you are beingfaced against two big groups.
For that people have been toldthat this is the way.
You know, the drug model is theway, or the behavioral way, and
so the transition out to thiswhole concept and to be able to
(30:29):
simply, you know, go from likethe idea that he wrote this
functional disconnectionsyndrome is to simply just say,
hey, this is a brain in balance,that literally one side of your
child's brain is developing ata faster rate and one side of
the brain is developing at aslower rate.
And the goal of our therapy isnot to enhance the more advanced
(30:52):
side, it's actually to bring upthe slower developing side to
merge and integrate with theother side of the brain.
That was a concept that parentsgot and then educators got.
We would go and we'd do.
I can't tell you how many timesin early years of when the first
edition came out I'd call DrMuller up and say, hey, I just
(31:13):
got asked to do a workshop at aschool.
I had several counties here inGeorgia that brought me in and
had me do continuing ed fortheir educational all around the
book.
And what we would do is wewould supply the whole
elementary school with boxes ofthe book for every teacher, the
principal, they all loved it.
(31:33):
And then it just made its wayfrom there to the psychologist,
to the school psychologist.
It just opened up doors that Ithink that initially we never
thought it would and and todayit's doing that and I think the
the best thing about thisedition is that the first
edition was the model of what hewas doing and what we were
(31:56):
doing in the centers.
The second edition, he was ableto publish and put in some of
the research that came from thebrain balance centers at the
time.
The new edition, what makes itso unique, is that no longer
does Dr Muller have to juststand on the work of others.
He can stand on the work of hisand he won't say that, but the
reality of it is that he'sposted, you know, published.
(32:18):
So been getting in the centers,getting in private practices
that are using the brain balancemodel, method, model, and
(32:42):
that's, you know, that's wherewe're at now.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
So yeah, and I'm glad you ended it that way, talking
about the Malila method, because, rob, if you, I wanted to talk
about the the growth of thebrain balance concept into this
new model called the MelilloMethod.
Right, and my understanding isthat the difference, especially
(33:04):
with the third edition of thebook, is that you're bringing
back into the brain balancemodel things that you developed
under the Melillo Method method.
So maybe it would be helpfulfor people listening the lay
people who are listening tomaybe do a very quick 30,000
(33:30):
foot flyover of the book interms of sections and segments,
just so that they can get anidea of really what the book is
about.
Who is it for?
What the book is about, who isit for and what type of problems
are you trying to help peopleunderstand and address?
Can you do that as succinctlyas possible, because we could
dive.
We could spend an hour talkingabout each part.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, the book was really written initially with
parents in mind and it wasdirected and geared towards, you
know, children from you know,ages of, let's say, you know,
four or five, up to, you know,18, 19, 20.
And it was really, at the time,directed towards a lot of the
kids that were like my kidsright, who were pretty high
(34:11):
functioning, that were diagnosedwith, let's say, adhd, maybe
mild autism, but also learningdisabilities, dyslexia, and it
was about, you know, trying tohelp those kids.
And initially I wanted to keepit pretty simple and, using the
principles of the functionaldisconnection you know, try to
(34:32):
keep it very low tech and verysimple and really make it
something that was reallyaffordable, that you didn't have
to use expensive equipment,keep it more in kind of an
academic education world andeven as we built the business,
we didn't want it to be in thehealth care world.
We wanted it to be really morespecial education, like
(34:55):
academics, and not use, you know, highly trained healthcare
professionals.
So it wasn't a healthcare modeland it was really designed to
use some of the scientificprinciples to change the brain,
but really geared towards kidsand higher functioning kids and,
you know, using very simplisticways.
(35:16):
But as we were getting more andmore results.
You know we'd get parents thatwould come to us and say, well,
my child doesn't speak andthey're autistic and their
behavior is really difficult andthey're really aggressive, or
they have a genetic disorder oryou know, or they have a brain
injury, or you know, what aboutmy kids that have all these
(35:38):
other metabolic issues going on?
Or what about my adult kid nowthat is 30 years old and they're
settling?
Or what about, you know, mychild that's 35 and has bipolar
disorder or schizophrenia?
And you know that wascompletely outside of the realm
of what I created in the brainbalance model and the brain
balance programming, but it wassomething that I ultimately
(36:01):
always wanted to have an impacton, and so the Melillo method
was the evolution of that andit's really a completely
different model.
I mean, if you come into myoffice and my clinic it's
completely different than if yougo into a brain balance center.
They're completely differentthan if you go into a brain
balance center.
They're completely differentmodels For me.
They're completely differentkind of patient population.
(36:22):
Most of what we work with in mypractice is really non-speaking
autistics of all different agegroups or genetic disorders or
brain injury, or adults withthings like bipolar anxiety or
brain injury, or adults withthings like bipolar anxiety
schizophrenia.
We work with infants and we usereally high tech stuff like the
cutting edge tools and it's allhealthcare practitioners and
(36:45):
it's you know, it's a much moresophisticated model, it's a much
more costly model and it's youknow.
But we're trying to really say,OK, what do we do now with the
most difficult problems in theworld that nobody really can
work with at this point, andkids and people that are violent
and aggressive?
And so that's the model I'vecreated and that's where the
(37:08):
Malula method comes into play,using a lot of lab work, a lot
of things that Peter's puttogether, you know, really
sophisticated ways of looking atlabs in a really you know,
functional, neuroimmunologicalway, and you know these are
things that have nothing to dowith brain balance.
So a lot of the underlyingscience is similar, but the way
that we've evolved into it andwhat we've evolved in into with
(37:33):
the Malila method is verydifferent than what we really go
through in that book, but we'veincorporated a lot of that new
information.
Even the way we handle some ofthe things we handled before,
like primitive reflexes, iscompletely different than what
we did before and much, muchmore effective.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Right.
So I think what I'm hearing andI actually love what I'm
hearing because if you look atall of these neurobehavioral
disorders on a scale and aspectrum, if you have an astute
parent who can pick up on theearliest changes that might
signal an underlying imbalancein how the two sides of the
(38:12):
brain are developing, they coulduse your book, do their own
work right, do their homeworkand remediate their child and
never have to go see aspecialist, right, right.
But then you do have thesenonverbal autistic children and
you do have adults who had brainimbalances that were never
(38:32):
resolved, that have neuro sickand sometimes neuropsychiatric
issues.
Those are much more complicatedand complex problems that
require a more complex andcomplicated model and
specialized knowledge andexpertise.
So you've really kind of playedboth ends right.
You've got the do-it-yourselfer, who's proactive and can take a
(38:56):
book and translate that intosomething that's really going to
make a difference on their own.
And then you have all the wayup to the point.
Now it's not just that you'veadded this to the book and
you've developed this method.
Now you're teaching cliniciansand both of you guys are doing
that right, the whole littlemethod, certification.
So why don't?
Because I know, rob, you've got15 minutes before you've got to
(39:17):
go, uh, and I would love toschedule another chat because,
like I said we I could talkabout this stuff for hours.
But can you talk a little bitabout the um, the clinician
certification and training, likewhat do you?
How does that deliver?
What could a clinician expectwhen they went through that
training?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, I think myevolution has always been, you
know, to get deeper and deeperand deeper and deeper.
And for me, I learned early on,when I started talking about
even when I was, you know, firstwriting, first writing my
textbook, and I started workingwith kids and I started
lecturing to parents.
I remember the first lecture Igave was terrible, I mean.
(40:00):
I remember one of my staffmembers.
I came and I thought it wasgreat, of course, and I said you
know, what do you think?
And they said, well, I don'tknow if they understood most of
the words that you used.
And I said, like I don't knowif they understood most of the
words that you used.
And I said, like, what words?
Like I use simple words.
They're like what did I use?
I didn't.
And they said, well, even likecognition, most people don't
(40:21):
know what that means.
I'm like, oh, okay, and so itwas something, you know, I
really worked hard at and I kindof knew.
You know, einstein said that theultimate sophistication is
simplicity, and I knew that.
You know, the only way toreally explain it simple is that
you really have to know it.
(40:42):
I mean, you have to own it foryou to take the most complex
concepts in all of neuroscienceand maybe in all of science.
You know, when you talk abouthow the brain works, it doesn't
get much more complex and youreally need to understand it at
the highest level to be able toreally understand what you need
(41:05):
to do.
But you also need to understandit at the highest level to try
to really make it simple.
I mean, we all know people andI won't mention names or
anything who purposely go outthere and speak in super
sophisticated terms that nobodyunderstands what the hell
they're saying and people arelike, wow, that guy's really
(41:25):
smart, right.
But to me, when anybody has totalk like that, it's because
they really don't know it, right, they really don't know it that
well, and so all of this hasbeen part of that In my course.
It's where I can really try togo nuts, meaning where I can
really get deep into it withpeople in an audience.
You know, listen, I'd love tosit in front of an audience that
(41:48):
has 10,000 people or 5,000.
But the fact is, you know, forreally sophisticated information
, you're going to have a smalleraudience.
That's more sophisticated,right, and they're going to
really appreciate it.
And we get these people that mywife, you know, likes to refer
to us as your neuro nerd friends.
(42:08):
You know that we get togetherand we want to nerd out, like
really at the deepest level,right, and Peter's been doing
that with the immune, with theimmune world now, and so you
know we want to.
But even that, you know, we, wehave to constantly remind people
that you know, in a 150 hourcourse, even though we're
getting at a fellowship level,it's high level.
(42:31):
We want to still.
It's still relatively simplefrom where we can take this and
there's, you know, a lot moresteps and there's a lot more
training.
That can go on.
But we're trying to give peoplereally good understanding,
working knowledge of the brain.
But you know, and that's reallywhere we've been at over the
past few years, it's 10 modulesand it really cuts on looking at
(42:55):
specific conditions but at thesame time building a really good
working knowledge of the brainand the nervous system and the
immune system and theinteraction, and we give people
real tools about how to go outthere.
And we have parents that takethe course and actually can go
through it and even becomecertified.
But you know, it's reallysomething that is meant to give
(43:16):
people really high-level toolsto be able to go out there and
really make a big impact.
But there's a lot of otherlevels that it can get to.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, yeah and I'm thinking just with the 10
minutes we have left before youhave to go.
Instead of diving into theclinician side of things, let's
keep it on the layperson side.
Peter, with all of yourexperience and I know that
you've worked both with thebrain balance model and now,
obviously, the malignal methodmodel it's hard to say.
(43:47):
What are some of the commonpatterns that you see when you
evaluate a child that issomewhere on that spectrum,
ranging from attention deficitwhatever to really complicated
autistic type behaviors.
What are some of thecommonalities you see in terms
(44:08):
of left right brainfunctionality that need to be
remediated?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
sure.
I mean, well, primary numberone is the primitive reflexes.
I mean you're going to see them.
Okay, you're going all right.
So let me just pause you thereand say let's define that,
because let's just assumewhoever's listening has no idea
what that is so these automatedsteps that happen
developmentally in the firstyear of life, that there's a
sequence of reflexes that arecoming online in the womb, that
(44:37):
assist the birthing process andthen set up the developmental
stages of the brain and thecentral nervous system over the
course of the first 12 to 15months, and that by around that
end of 12 to 15 months, thosespecific reflexes, these
primitive reflexes because theystarted such an early part of
(44:58):
development, and they are allfound in the brainstem.
So, looking at that particularprimitive part of our brain
again, they all should beinhibited by that end of the
first year and so, if they'reretained, what they basically do
simplicity, suspend thedevelopment of the brain and in
most instances it's going toprobably suspend the development
(45:21):
of the right side of the brain.
Okay, so when we look atchildren that have symptoms of
inattention or hyperactivity orany type of obsessive,
compulsive or motor tics, oreven Tourette's social,
pragmatic type of problems,where they have social
communication issue, you know,as they age up they don't
(45:43):
necessarily have what we callpragmatic language or the
conversational aspect oflanguage.
They may actually speak and usevocabulary and spell really
well because of the bias of theleft brain, but in terms of
understanding language orcomprehending language, which is
a primary skill of the rightbrain.
So what happens in all thesedisorders is that we see these
(46:06):
retained primitive reflexes.
Now the severity of the brainimbalance, the severity of the
difference between thedevelopment of one hemisphere to
the other, is probably alsogoing to indicate the severity
of the primitive reflexes.
If the primitive reflexes arereally severe, then the
immaturity in the brain is goingto be really great.
(46:28):
Now what we'll see in a lot ofchildren is that they'll be
blessed because of some of thehemispheric traits that are
actually passed on by familymembers that allow them to have
an acceleration of of one sideversus the other.
This is why we really believethat autism is what we refer to
as a geek syndrome.
Ok, that we see these veryexceptional left hemispheric
(46:51):
bias skills.
Even in all the non-speakersthat Dr Malone and I are working
with right now.
They all have these tremendousleft brain skills that we're
actually seeing from them, andso that would be number one is
the retention of the primitivereflexes.
Number two would be muscle tone.
Most of these children actuallyhave various hypotonia um.
(47:14):
Some of them have globalhypotonia low muscle tone
globally, um, but then we'll seepatterns of this muscle tone,
mostly in posterior compartmentsof of the of the muscle system,
okay.
And then, thirdly, I would lookat the vestibular system okay,
and looking at how they haveaberrancies in vestibular output
(47:34):
from both vestibular systems.
Either they may have, in mostinstances, hypoactivation of the
vestibular system, low outputof their vestibular
functionality.
Some children will have hyper,but the majority of kids will
have hypo.
And fourth, we would look at alot of the oculomotor
development of their eye muscles, okay, and ability to have
(47:55):
coordinated eye muscles in basiceye tracking or rapid eye
movements, or the ability toconverge or diverge their eyes.
So, broadly speaking, I wouldsay those four major areas that
we're going to see are going tobe delayed.
And then, as they begin to,let's say, develop the two and
three and four, when we shouldsee more of their cognition
(48:19):
developing, their cognitivepowers developing or their
social pragmatic developmenthappening around that, let's say
28 months, beyond the 36 months, the 50 months, that's when
we'll start seeing that delay inthose functions as these kids
are entering into, let's say,preschool, pre-k.
But you're going to see theprimitive reflexes, the low
(48:43):
muscle tone, the hypo vestibularfunction, the failure of eye
muscle tracking.
I mean, those things aredefinitely going to be seen
below 36 months of life.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, and I would imagine each case presents
slightly differently, eventhough the general pattern might
be similar.
Rob, I know you need to go in afew minutes, but with your
perspective, with this work thatyou've done, that the brain is
(49:14):
massively interconnected andinterdependent.
If we look at the role thatthese primitive reflexes play in
the developmental hierarchy andthe fact that if these
primitive reflexes are notabolished, the brain delays its
development, would you say, like, if we look at the Pareto
principle, you know 80% of youroutput comes from 20% of your
(49:38):
work.
How much value can you derivefrom simply identifying routine
primitive reflexes and thendoing the work to abolish them,
taking away that obstacle?
Would you say that thattranslates into 80% of your
results, or is that just stepone?
But there's an awful lot ofmore work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, the way I look at it, you know, steve, is more
and more I realized that there'sinterrelationship, which is
probably the two foundingprinciples.
One is what we call verticalintegration, right, the idea of
bottom-up development and thentop-down integration, and that
there's this progression whichis led and started by these
primitive reflexes and then theyshould go away and all of that,
(50:25):
and then at the same timethere's a differentiation, with
the right brain developing inthe first three years
predominantly, and then the leftbrain developing in the first
three years predominantly andthen the left brain developing
in the next three years, so thatwe get this differentiation and
the right and the left brain,and as they mature they become
more and more specialized andmore and more different and more
demand to make sure that theyare integrating.
(50:47):
It becomes harder and harder tointegrate them, and so those
two things are intimatelyinvolved with one another.
So for me, you know, gettingrid of the reflexes is
foundational.
If you don't get rid of thereflexes, we're never going to
be able to fully integrate thebrain.
But if we don't fully integratethe brain or work to integrate
the brain, we're never going tofully get rid of these reflexes.
(51:09):
Those two things are intimately, and I think that's where I see
some failures, meaning somepeople will come in and they've
done years of primitive reflexwork with other people and the
primitive reflexes is stillthere and it's very frustrating
for them at a strong level.
Then I see other people thatmight have been going to people
that were trying to do somebrain integration and they may
(51:31):
have gotten some results butthey didn't get complete
resolution of the issues or asmuch result as they thought and
it's because they didn't look atthe primitive reflexes and they
didn't deal with that.
Both those things areintimately important.
And then understanding theneuroimmune piece, understanding
the autonomic nervous system,the balance of the sympathetic
and parasympathetic that is socritical, and all of those
(51:55):
things are so intimately tied toone another that you know
that's the way I look at itthose things have to go together
.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Yeah, and so just to maybe encapsulate on the
therapeutic side, the moresuccessful, the most successful
approach is multimodal, right?
It's not just doing theexercises to get rid of the
primitive reflex, it might beharnessing the potential of
(52:23):
light or sound or movement oreven cognitive challenges, right
?
Speaker 2 (52:29):
So it's not just one thing, yeah, and doing it all
together right, so it's not justone, yeah, and doing it all
together right, because thewhole thing, the brain works and
networks work in simultaneity,meaning that things have to
happen simultaneously, all thesethings have to happen together,
which is one of the things Ithink that was unique, that I
brought to.
This was the idea ofco-activation or what we called
(52:50):
same time integration in thebook, meaning that it wasn't
just about, you know, doing eyeexercises or light stimulation,
or sound, or smell, or movementor cognitive.
It was about doing all of themtogether with in a very specific
, directed way, you know, notjust generally stimulating but
(53:10):
really trying to activatecertain things and inhibit
others, but doing it alltogether.
That is also a critical,critical piece.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, and again I want to honor your time
commitments.
Parents of children who havethese neurobehavioral challenges
, and how much hope is there foran adult who may have had these
challenges unresolved fordecades?
Speaker 2 (53:39):
I think there's great hope.
I mean, that's what we showevery day.
I mean we'll do 10,000 officevisits this year in my one
office and we're opening upanother office in New York City
because, you know, the demand isso great, because the results
are so great.
People aren't flying all overthe world and coming to see us
at that level if we're notgetting really big changes.
And so we see it every day andwe've proven it now in the
(54:02):
research as well.
I think hope is great as longas people start learning this
stuff and waking up.
And you know we're stuck inthese old models.
There's a great paper recentlythat I just went through.
I just did an iathner lecturethe other day and I talked about
how this paper came out.
Really, we can talk about itnext time.
It's so cool the relationshipbetween hypermobility and loss
(54:25):
and underdevelopment ofproprioception and how that
relates to emotional feelingsand interoception and
neurodivergence.
Right, it was reallyfascinating.
But what they say in it is thatyou know, traditional medicine
is a blunt instrument andtraditional psychology,
cognitive behavioral therapy.
(54:47):
And this is from, you know, theJournal of the Royal Academy of
London.
This is one of the mostprestigious journals in the
world and they're saying that,you know, understanding these
things.
We need to understand it at arefined level because right now,
you know, all those other toolsright now are blunt instruments
and unless we understand thisand start to adopt these things
(55:10):
which you know, we're fightingtraditional medicine,
traditional pharma, traditionaleducation, traditional
psychiatry and psychology.
If these things become adoptedand people really, you know,
move forward, I think there'stremendous hope to really stop
this progression of theseepidemics and change things and
really impact mental health in ahuge way.
(55:31):
And if we don't, it's justgoing to get worse and worse and
worse and it's going to bedevastating.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yeah, which is why it's so important to get the
message out that there areanswers, you can get results and
, as a result, you can restorehope that your quality of life
can be something that'sworthwhile.
Absolutely yeah, peter, anyfinal words.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
I think he did a great job summering it, so we're
good.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yeah, all right, I'll reach out to you guys and we'll
set something up and we'llrecord part two, and I feel like
we just got it started rollingon the really nerdy, cool stuff
that we all love, so let's makesome time to come back and
finish that conversation off.
Thank you, guys.
We really truly appreciate yourtime.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
Thank you, buddy, it was great.
Okay, thank you, bye, We'll seeyou next time.
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