Mindfulness, EMDR, and Wearable Tech: An Interview with Dr. Steve Dansiger

Curt and Katie chat with Dr. Steve Dansiger about integrating mindfulness into EMDR therapy, the challenges therapists face when teaching mindfulness, and his work developing wearable technology that could transform trauma healing. We explore the myths that stop therapists and clients from benefiting from mindfulness, how therapists can embody their own practices, and how innovation and embodiment can come together through vibration, sound, and bilateral stimulation.

(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT.)

About Our Guest: Dr. Steve Dansiger

Dr. Steve played CBGB and Max’s Kansas City in the late 70s; drank, played drums in a toy rock band and then got sober in the late 80s; became an international social justice/diversity educator and rocker again in the 90s; and is now a sought after consultant, trainer, clinician, writer and meditation teacher. Dr. Steve has attempted to cure Marc Maron on his world renowned WTF Podcast, become a master EMDR therapist and provider of EMDR Training and Advanced Topics Courses with the Institute for Creative Mindfulness, and is a pioneer in the Buddhist recovery field. He is the creator and founder of the MET(T)A Protocol (Mindfulness and EMDR Treatment Template for Agencies) which utilizes both Buddhist psychology and EMDR therapy to create an agency’s primary clinical practice system. He is the author of Clinical Dharma: A Path for Healers and Helpers, EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma-Focused Care (coauthored with Jamie Marich), Mindfulness for Anger Management and also coauthored Trauma and the 12 Steps: A Trauma Responsive Workbook and Trauma and the 12 Steps: Daily Meditations & Reflections – both companion pieces to the updated Trauma and the 12 Steps by Dr. Jamie Marich, for which he wrote the foreword. His most recent book (with Dr. Marich) is Healing Addiction with EMDR Therapy: A Trauma Focused Guide. He blogs and podcasts on topics related to mental health, recovery, and mindfulness. Besides maintaining a private practice in Los Angeles, he travels internationally speaking and teaching on Buddhist mindfulness, EMDR therapy, the MET(T)A Protocol, trauma, Buddhist approaches to treating mental health issues, and clinician self-care. He has been practicing Buddhist mindfulness for over 30 years (including a one year residency at a Zen monastery), and teaches dharma classes regularly in Los Angeles and other centers internationally. Steve is Co-Founder of HapTech Holdings, the creators of full immersion sound technology delivered through bluetooth connecting vibrational footwear to your headphones, designed for entertainment use and for health care. StartAgain Technologies, develops, collaborates on and acquires applications to deliver through HapTech hardware, to enhance the MET(T)A Protocol and add new dimensions to many other health and wellness platforms. StartAgain has partnered with the NTL Group on cognitive repair solutions. StartAgain also partners with other technology companies in health care through their membership in the Connected HealthCare and Wellbeing Cluster and Incubator in Dundalk, Ireland. Steve also graduated in 2022 from the Master of Health Care Innovation (MHCI) program at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied and collaborated with fellow students and faculty including doctors, nurses, academics, researchers and administrators to continue his quest of finding innovative solutions to broaden access to mental health care and wellness.

In this podcast episode: How Mindfulness and EMDR Intersect with Innovation in Trauma Treatment

We invited Dr. Steve Dansiger to talk about how he’s blended mindfulness, trauma therapy, and tech innovation throughout his career. From Zen monasteries to punk rock, from EMDR consultation to Bluetooth-powered resourcing, Steve’s journey demonstrates how therapists can evolve their tools while staying grounded in presence and purpose. He breaks down what clinicians get wrong about mindfulness, why your own practice matters, and how wearable tech might enhance trauma treatment—without replacing the human connection at the heart of therapy.

Key Takeaways for Therapists on Mindfulness in Trauma Therapy and EMDR

“The mind was built to think. A perfectly clear mind is really not a thing.”
— Dr. Steve Dansiger

• Many therapists (and clients) mistakenly believe mindfulness requires a blank mind or perfect posture.
• EMDR already integrates mindfulness through language like “notice that” and the emphasis on present-moment awareness.
• Mindfulness helps clients stabilize, manage symptoms, and prepare for trauma reprocessing—and can be scaled to their needs.
• Starting with just one or two minutes of mindfulness daily can be effective, especially with neurodivergent or chronic pain clients.
• Clinicians should maintain their own mindfulness practice; clients are attuned to authenticity.
• Technology, especially sound and vibration through the feet, is showing promise for trauma work, grounding, and enhancing resourcing.
• Emerging research explores applications for PTSD, anxiety, Parkinson’s, and ICU mental health care.

“I don’t understand how someone does it [trauma therapy] without mindfulness. I’ve been doing it for so long, I don’t know another way.”
— Dr. Steve Dansiger

Resources on Mindfulness, EMDR, and Healing Technology

• Dr. Dansiger’s Website
  
• HapTech Holdings
  
• Healing Addiction with EMDR Therapy by Dr. Steve Dansiger & Dr. Jamie Marich
• EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma Focused Care
  
• Clinical Dharma: A Path for Healers and Helpers
  
• Mindfulness for Anger Management
  
• Trauma and the 12 Steps: A Trauma Responsive Workbook and Daily Meditations and Reflections by Dr. Stephen Dansiger & Dr. Jamie Marich 

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast

Navigating Religious Trauma, Spiritual Abuse, and Lies About God: An interview with Dr. Jamie Marich
We Answer the Question: Is EMDR a Pyramid Scheme?
Exploring Trauma and the 12 Steps: An interview with Dr. Jamie Marich
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, An Interview with Dr. Craig Heacock, MD
Reporting Back from the Behavioral Health Tech 2024 Conference
Topic: Technology

Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy

Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

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Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).

… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)

Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our practices, the ways that we develop, the ways that we deal with our profession, the ways that we become trained. And this is a fun episode for me. We’re joined by Dr. Steve Dansiger. He’s a great mentor and an influence on my practice and really shaped a lot of the ways that I’ve been able to show up clinically in the world. And I’m just super excited to share Steve with everybody and his ideas and bringing mindfulness into things, bringing us into how tech is kind of involved in the way that the future of treatment is going to be happening here. So thank you so much for joining us and being a part of the podcast.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 1:11
Thanks, Curt. It’s great to see you. It’s always great to see you. And Katie, nice to meet you.

Katie Vernoy 1:15
I’m super excited to meet you and to have this conversation. Curt has only said very positive things. And I’ve also known some other folks who’ve worked with you that have the same report. But we’ll start with the question we ask all our guests, which is, who are you and what are you putting out into the world?

Dr. Steve Dansinger 1:30
Well, my name is Steven Dansiger, and I am putting out, I hope, on a regular basis, loving kindness. That’s basically at the bottom line, my love of mindfulness, my love of EMDR therapy, my love of working with people on their stuff, my creativity and others creativity, and the integration of all of the above, that’s basically, that’s the bottom line, I guess, on what I’m putting out there.

Curt Widhalm 2:04
So I know EMDR is not without its controversies in some other people’s opinions of things, but when I was going through my EMDR training and certification process, Steve was one of my consultants, and asked, Hey, you know the style of EMDR that you teach what is different about it than some of the other EMDR trainings that are out there. And Steve’s response was, we’re very mindful based. There’s a lot of mindfulness within the ecosystem that’s built in. It’s heavily emphasized within this model. And we start a lot of our podcast, not from a shaming place, but from a place where other people can maybe learn or take in some wisdom from people who’ve made some mistakes in the past. What do therapists usually get wrong about mindfulness?

Dr. Steve Dansinger 2:53
Well, it’s easy to de-shamify that question by saying the same thing that most people get wrong with it. So there’s, there’s a lot of myths out there about mindfulness, and it keeps people from learning it, it keeps people from practicing it, it keeps people from using it in their clinical setting. And the first one is, first one I want to address is that it’s designed to clear your mind, right? And then you have a person who tries it, and it’s like, I couldn’t clear my mind, and that’s just not a thing. Like, I’ll just quiz you Curt and Katie. And then, you know, people who are out there who I can’t hear back from, you know, like, how many things are you thinking of at once, right now? It’s got to be anywhere from two to seven, right? You know, like, we’re focused on what we’re doing. But there’s thoughts that are, you know, sort of wandering around, and we could follow any one of them and sort of fall off whatever cliff they’re taking us off of at any given time. And so, you know, a perfectly clear mind is really not a thing. I mean, I know, like Zen masters of many, many years, who eventually get to the thought, you know, like, I hope we have some of that ceremonial green tea left over so I can, you know, like, just the way it is. The mind was built to think. So that’s one of the myths. The other myth is, or another myth is that it has to be done for a certain amount of time in a certain posture. I’ve been teaching for decades now that five minutes a day is better than 30 minutes on Saturday and not the rest of the week. You know, a lot of times people will come in, it’s gotta be half an hour. It’s gotta be this, gotta be that. And then the other one that comes in is, you know, it has to be done perfect full lotus posture on the beach at sunset in lululemons. You know, there needs to be this very, very, very serene smile on your face. And so, you know, all of these are barriers to mindfulness. And so it’s barriers that are a setup for clients, but they’re also a setup for therapist to sort of say, Yeah, this I don’t, I don’t need this as one of my tools for my clients. So those are a few things that therapists and others get, get wrong about it.

Curt Widhalm 5:15
And if I can add to this that in my experience, a lot of times, people have really negative experiences at first with mindfulness. That not only is there the difficulty of trying to get to a clear mind, but also when you start to pay attention to what’s actually going through your mind, it can be really uncomfortable and painful for a lot of people.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 5:37
Yeah, and that’s one of the other myths, is that it’s supposed to be puppies and unicorns every time. You know that it’s gonna be I’m always gonna become relaxed from this. And in fact, what it is is, as you’re pointing out, we’re developing a different relationship with our mind and our body. We’re not like changing it in some way. So.

Katie Vernoy 5:58
I work with folks who have probably some form of neurodivergence. I also work with folks who’ve had a lot of chronic illnesses. I have both of those things myself, and I find that mindfulness can be very painful, both emotionally and physically, or at least very challenging. How do you support folks in getting to that even five minutes a day.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 6:24
So one of the ways that I answer this question on the regular is Jon Kabat-Zinn, who’s sort of like the grandfather of bringing mindfulness. I don’t know how he’d feel about the grandfather title. He’s just the father. He’s the father of bringing mindfulness into the clinical world, and he created Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction as a result. And his first population, and ongoing, this is a population that’s often the subjects of MBSR is chronic pain, right? And that’s because of, in terms of this myth busting, you know, going again that we’re not gonna fix the pain, but we will be able to develop a new relationship to the pain through mindfulness. So yes, there’s gonna be challenges, and yes, you know, you need to sort of bring a person through a process and help them and support them. And so the way that I particularly help, you know, neurodivergent people, or people with chronic pain, is to work with that five minutes in the office and break it down, like we might even take a whole session where we do five minutes meditation and then we break it down, you know, to what, what that was, what it wasn’t. You know how it might seem like it could be helpful in the future, how it might not seem likely to be helpful in the future. And then maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll do another five minutes and check on that. So just it, it’s taking it as seriously as you take any other intervention that you’re doing in the office is, you know, the same way, like I’m constantly checking back in with people about their substance use, you know, whether or not their substance use is their problem. I’ll be checking back in with people’s mindfulness practice over and over and over again, and reminding them that they don’t have to increase the five minutes. And I’ve had folks who, like, can’t do five, like, I don’t know two, so we do two. You know, I think I’ve had someone where they’re like, one. I was like, Okay, we’ll do one. So like that, and building it up from there.

Curt Widhalm 8:38
Going back to the introduction from the episode, and bringing mindfulness to EMDR. Can you share the history of how those two kind of came together, how you’ve been able to bring that magic sauce to the EMDR community?

Dr. Steve Dansinger 8:54
So there’s the personal and there’s the EMDR version, or the EMDR story. Well, I came into addiction recovery myself almost 36 years ago, and four months into my recovery, my new best friend at the time, the way you make friends in 12 step, and who’s still my best friend today, and even though we live across the country from each other, invited me to go to an AA retreat at a Zen Buddhist monastery. And so I said, First, I said, No, actually, I said, he said, you want to go on a retreat? I was like, no, that sounds stupid, you know. And then he said, it’s at a Zen Buddhist monastery. I’m like, ooh, weird. What, you know? Like, let me check that out. So I went and you had the option, you didn’t have to do it. You could hang out with the monks and nuns and learn how to meditate. You also learn how to eat in silence in this very regimented way. And so I got the lesson, and the lesson was zazen, which just means sitting Zen. They said, zazen, sit down, shut up, don’t move. Those are the only instructions I got very first time, and then he rang a bell. And he didn’t ring a bell for another 45 minutes, right? And so first part of the meditation, I’m like, this is okay. The second part was, I might be the Buddha. Third part was about 40 minutes long, and it was, it was, you know, this is the words that were there. It’s just ring the fucking bell. Ring the fucking bell. Ring the fucking bell. That’s all I heard in my head and and so he eventually rang the bell, and I being who I am, I was just like, wow, that was dumb and weird, and it really, really hurt. When are we doing it again? So, so I’ve been sitting that way ever since. So when I got trained in EMDR therapy, cutting forward a number of years, when I got trained in EMDR therapy, I noticed that there was a lot of mindfulness inherent in it. And I was just like, this is a mindfulness kind of therapy. How come no one talks about it? So I asked my trainer, Andrew Leeds, I said, Is this a mindfulness based therapy? And he said, why yes, it is. And I said, Well, why doesn’t anyone talk about it? He said, Well, it is a mindfulness based therapy and we don’t talk about it because in the year that it was created, 1987 there was only one article in the clinical literature about mindfulness. So if Francine Shapiro started telling people, Hey, if I wave my finger in your face, you’re going to feel better. And it’s based on an ancient eastern, you know, practice blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that would have been the end of EMDR therapy. So that was his explanation as to why Francine Shapiro kept that all close to the vest. She just didn’t talk about it at all in public until like 2014, 2015 when a group of us basically called her on it, because we found out from a very good source that Francine Shapiro was trained in mindfulness before she had her experience in her walk in the park, where she then developed the EMDR therapy, and she got trained by Steven Levine, a very prominent Buddhist teacher. And so also, I then also looked, when I was talking to Andrew, I looked at the language that’s in the protocol, which you’re very familiar with, you know, which is, what are you noticing now? You know, those are mindfulness words. Nnd notice that. Go with that. And the whole basis of the bilateral, and then the reports the bilateral, then the reports. All of that is a mindfulness exercise. It’s a constant invitation into the present for the person who is going through, you know, through the experience to be in the present while noticing the past. They’re not floating around in the past like an exposure. They’re one step away from it or two steps away from it. So last thing I could say is, there’s a lot of besides what I just mentioned, there’s a lot of implicit and explicit mindfulness in the protocol. And so it’s just a matter of bringing the implicit up above the waterline and using the explicit as it’s written, and you get to where you’re going, and the mindfulness basis is clear.

… 13:22
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Curt Widhalm 13:24
So with EMDR as a trauma treatment, I know that it gets expanded out into treating a lot of other things, but a lot of Shapiro’s research being around PTSD and trauma, the integration, the preparation for this is not only Hey, come in, talk about your trauma, those sorts of things, but it is learning a very new skill set. And sometimes, when I’m doing consultations with people who are just learning EMDR and talking about that preparation phase, it’s almost kind of a the metaphor I use sometimes is it’s almost like karate kid with let’s teach you some skills that are going to be helpful a little bit later. And let’s learn some mindfulness to be able to be prepared for facing some of the worst parts of your history here. In your experience and in introducing this not only to your clients, but when you do EMDR trainings, how do you talk about this integration really being able to work in trauma treatment?

Dr. Steve Dansinger 14:28
Well, I like the way that you just phrased it. And in addition to that, it’s looking at it from the three phase model of trauma treatment, the Pierre Janet triphasic model, which is, you know, that treatment has a beginning, a middle and an end, and there’s stabilization, and then there’s, you know, the shifting of the memories through the work. And then there’s relapse prevention and all of that, and that, all three of those need to be there. So framing, the resourcing and the mindfulness through that lens, helps to helps me, to help clients and trainees to not be kind of spooked by the what it is that we’re talking about with mindfulness. If we’re not only looking at it as it’s, you know, in the most obvious way, which is actually the, to me, the most obvious way is that it’s, you know, the stabilization and the resourcing that it provides, and that people can get some symptom relief before they even get to reprocessing through using, you know, mindfulness, and start, start to be able to titrate into an ability to sit with the stress and sit with pain and and then get to the other side of it, which is, you know, a victory in in recovery. And then that may be less obvious, but it’s the part you brought up, is that the mindfulness actually helps people to become better reprocessors. Like I’m so these same skills that I’m giving you to bring you symptom relief are the same skills that are going to help you to get through the trauma reprocessing. And so it’s not just this, this exercise we’re going through is not just like, How can I soothe myself? It’s how can I get through that difficulty in a way that allows me to land on the other side, where I now have this skill to maintain, so that these are lifelong skills. So that’s the other, you know, like treatment has a beginning, a middle and an end. You know, you seem like a very nice person, but I don’t plan on having you on my couch, you know, forever, and that when you leave here, you’ll have these skills, and they’ll be meaningful and useful the same way they were meaningful and useful to prepare to do trauma reprocessing and in the trauma reprocessing. So that’s a little bit about that.

Curt Widhalm 16:51
And this seems like something that’s nearly impossible to do unless you are engaging in your own mindfulness practice as the therapist in these situations.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 17:01
Well, and that is, you know, sort of, it’s that thing at this point, you know, having been a practitioner for 35 years, I don’t, it’s not that I don’t understand how someone does it without it. It’s just that I don’t understand how someone does it without like, you know, I’ve been doing it for so long, I don’t know another way. So I hope I’m not being, you know, like, you know, it’s got to be like this. But it’s more like, if you’re trying to dole out mindfulness to folks and you don’t have your own practice, it’s not gonna necessarily land. You know, because our clients know what’s up. Our clients know what we’re doing and what we’re not doing, you know, just through their own sixth sense kind of thing. So and for me to say, do this thing and I don’t do it, it’s not that that has to be the way it is for all of therapy, but in terms of like giving a skill like that, I think it’s important that we know it intimately ourselves.

Katie Vernoy 18:04
And it seems like so many trauma survivors are very well attuned to when we’re full of shit. And so I think we have to really walk our talk when we’re working with especially with trauma survivors. Moving into technology, it’s been a little special, you know, special interest of mine. It seems like I know that there’s, like, tapping machines, there’s different things that are part of EMDR, but it seems like there’s advances that are happening there that maybe you can share with us.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 18:40
Well, there, in general, there are advances, where more and more, you know, virtual and Bluetooth options are becoming available. I mean, you know, in the beginning, in the beginning there were light bars, or then there still are wired light bars and tappers. And usually those tappers also have an audio outlet so that you have the ability to do eye movements or audio tones or taps back and forth. And so I was involved in a tech project a lot of years ago where I was invited to try and help create a Fitbit for the emotions. And there’s a lot of years ago, and we, you know, we put that all together, and we’re about to launch, and the Apple Watch came out and killed all the little baby wearable companies at the time. It was very sad. It was bad. But, you know, I’m not really a tech person by nature, and so I was just like, all right, that was that adventure. Then a few years later, I got a call from the CEO of that company, and they said, I’ve got something else I want to show you. And what they had was footwear. It was designed for entertainment first. It was designed by a drummer producer who wanted to feel like he was at a live show, no matter where he was. And he first thing he did was tried to build a full body suit, which he realized that would be too hot and very expensive. And one day he was in the studio, and he felt it just through his feet. And he felt immersion, you know, like headphones and through the feet. So he went out, bought a pair of Air Jordans, started sticking wires in it, and a few years later, he had a prototype. And then a couple years later, they had a product. And so I was invited in to try the product, and they put on the song. I was a punk rock drummer, was my first career. And so they were asking me, you know, what do you think as a drummer and as a therapist? And so I heard Bob O’Reilly the WHO song, and I felt like I was inside Keith Moon’s body, and I could feel like full immersion of music. And I lost my mind. And when she asked, you know, what do you think of it? I’m like, Well, you clearly saw me running around the room, going, oh my god, I think it’s great. And I said, and I’m, I don’t want to listen to music any other way, and I think we can heal people with these. And so the idea was, like, this is the best EMDR equipment ever. You know, I’ve got, like, EMDR equipment on my feet. And, you know, we can do the bilateral and we can also do the resourcing at the end, you know, 10 minutes of whatever sound, vibration, music, etc. And so that started my journey with that. And eventually I came to own the patents, and along with a group of investors. And the idea there too was, you know, like it was obvious to me, that was EMDR equipment, and then I thought, also, you know, there’s a lot of people out there in other fields or whatever, and smarter than me that would know what else to do with this, to heal people, right? Sound and vibration music. People talk about it all the time. And so, you know, that led to, eventually, you know, we’re addressing other things with it as well. Besides, you know, the obvious, or obvious to me, EMDR value. The the other thing was, is that I started using it in my office, you know, testing it out, testing out this theory that it was good. And one of my clients, very early on, said, ew, gross. Who had these shoes on before me? I’m not putting these on. Which is a response, you know, like, my thing is, I have a high threshold of gross. So, like, I just didn’t think it all the way through. And so I was like, Oh yeah, I guess we gotta do something about this. So I gave the engineers a, you know, a drawing in my way of drawing, which is, like, you know, stick figures of a platform, you know, like, where you could get the same effect putting your feet on a platform, even without, even with your shoes still on. And they built that. And so that exists, you know, and it has light bars on it, so you can do EMDR therapy with the lights as well. And there’s a bunch of other manifestations, like we’ve been able to shrink a shoe down into an insole that can go into any shoe. So we’re, you know, that’ll come out, and we’ll also put out, like a soccer slide with the insole on it. So anyway, those are those, that’s, that’s what we’re working on, and it’s put me in touch with a lot of other people working on a lot of exciting things, too.

… 23:21
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Curt Widhalm 23:23
Full disclosure, I am one of the investors in Steve’s work here. It’s something that I’ve seen the shoes I’ve I’ve got that light up sort of experience with it too. It is awesome. And as an investor, I know that part of what’s going on in this world. Is a lot of research around how this is coming out. Can you talk about that a little bit more?

Dr. Steve Dansinger 23:48
Yeah, so the research is in its early phases, and it includes the EMDR therapy, it includes on PTSD, on anxiety, on TBI and addiction. And then the people smarter than me part, couple of folks came forward and said they wanted to try and see what the effects would be on Parkinson’s because music and sound and vibration and rhythm are all part of Parkinson’s treatment. So there’s some studies going on in that regard, and then the other studies that we’re hoping to fire up sooner than later involve other diagnoses or difficulties that where music is implicated, where music sound and or vibration is implicated. So Autism, Alzheimer’s, there’s a book called “Music and Mind” just came out probably about six months ago. It’s edited by the opera singer Renee Fleming, and it is all of the music therapy research and all the music and sound and vibration research that’s out there. It’s pretty thick volume, and one of the things that I found most interesting about it is that 90% of the research, I just made up a number. So that’s not good. A large number of it is, is since 2017. You know, meaning that people have looked into this before, but now they’re really starting to look into it. So, you know, basically what I do is I give the shoes or the equivalent to someone in another field, and say, What would you do with these? And I usually get an answer. So you know, I’m hoping that the research, you know, continues to grow, including, like, for instance, once I gave it to an ICU doctor, an ICU researcher. And I said, What would you do with these? He said, Oh, I need these really badly. Why? And he said, Well, I want you to put it in a sock, and I want it to be able to put it on my ICU patients, because my biggest problem in the ICU is mental health. That, you know, they’re there, they’re contemplating their mortality, they’re in pain, they’re lonely a lot of the time, you know, limited visiting hours, like all that. And so I would love to have them there. So that’s just an example. You know, I want to be able to serve, you know, all those different, you know, sectors, because we’re also trying to serve all the sectors in entertainment, because there’s a lot of, obviously, there’s a lot of entertainment possibilities with the tech. But the healing and the wellness that is, of you know, most compelling to me, although there’s a lot of crossover.

Katie Vernoy 26:35
When you’re working in kind of the I guess the products of mental health, it seems like a very different process and skill set than being a clinician. What is it like owning a wearable, patent for a wearable, and what does that mean, as far as how you take it to market, how you do the research? Like it seems like it’s a very different skill set than being a clinician.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 27:03
Yeah, it’s, it’s really, to use a really weak word, it’s really weird, and I’m still getting used to it. You know, it’s like, still an ongoing process of, like, what is this? And the main event of it all is that I’m a co-founder, and, you know, we for a while, for a long while, we had a chief science officer, and we’re going to bring on someone else, you know, to in other words, I’m not going to be that primary person, because I’m not a researcher as much as I’m a practitioner. So you know, most of what I can really bring to the table is my excitement and my desire to heal people. And I seem to have a decent ability to build teams, you know, to put people, to bring people together. So it’s mostly been about doing that work has been about relying on the amazing group of experts that we’ve put together. And when I say we, I mean all of us, like everyone from the core executive team to the investors to, you know, like people are bringing people to the table all the time. And, you know, just selfishly, the fact that it’s also entertainment tech is really fun for me, because I’ve been out of the entertainment business for a lot of years. I haven’t been officially, like in a band or anything like that since like 1998 so I’m now surrounded by creatives again. And I actually was, you know, raised, my dad had a very eclectic music taste, and it included musical theater. And I lived in New York, and so we used to go to Broadway, and I saw Grease when it came out. That’s how old I am. I saw The Wiz when it came out, you know. And so a lot of what we’re doing, we also have this version of the tech that also will become a healthcare wellness piece called, it’s a floor mat, and it’s basically like tiles that you can put on the floor, and you put them at the Broadway theater. You know, we have investors from Broadway, and we have folks advisors because of that on Broadway, and we’re seeking to put it into, you know, theater spaces. But those floor mats could also be used at sensory rooms. Could be used at spas. You know, there’s lots of waiting rooms. There’s just all sorts of possible manifestations.

Katie Vernoy 29:34
That seems very exciting. It seems like a lot of fun to be able to go into something that is definitely relevant, both to your current and previous professions, and that has such an opportunity for creativity, for for connecting with people in a different way. I think oftentimes we can be very isolated in our in our little rooms, doing our work. And so being able to to think so outside of the box, and really help move our profession into the future. It seems really exciting to be able to do that.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 30:08
Oh, thanks. It is it is fun, it is exciting, and it’s also stressful,

Katie Vernoy 30:15
No doubt.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 30:17
Stressful, but it’s okay.

Curt Widhalm 30:20
With so many applications for the tech that you’re working on, is there any concern about it being kind of diminished within the healthcare community, as far as, like, you’re just, you know, you’re bringing in bells and whistles, and you know, what was the original criticism of EMDRs? You know, this isn’t new. It’s, you know, repackaged other stuff. But is there concern that that’s going to be the response from the healthcare industry when it comes to all of these other really cool things that you and I have seen, but it just being kind of poo pooed as Yeah, that’s just everyday stuff that you’re bringing in here.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 30:57
I see it as a distinct possibility, because people are people love to do that to stuff.

Katie Vernoy 31:04
There’s always haters.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 31:07
Yeah, the haters are always around. I think that this approach, because here’s the thing, is that if we it’s related, it’s not an exact hit here. But you know, if we said this is everything for everyone you know that would you know? That’s what makes it so that people are just like, No, it isn’t, you know. And by going to the individuals, and going to the individual communities and saying, What would you do with this? And then let, here’s the thing, Curt is like, and this happened with the original company that owned the patents is that the only way to get people really to understand it was to have them put them on their feet right? And then once they do that, the haters usually become like converts, or, you know, whatever. Like they’ll they’ll see the value through their own experience and like that. I guess that’s my that’s my skew, right? Is like, I feel like, you know, personal experiences, the greatest, you know, the greatest way to get from one place to the other around that, or any other thing.

Katie Vernoy 32:16
So the only way to get to be a convert, or one of the, one of the ways that you think is going to get folks be convert is trying them on. I just, I picture you, or folks in your team doing the the conference road show, having to make sure that they’re they’re tabling at every single big therapist conference so that folks can actually get on board. Because I think any type of advancement, a lot of clinicians really get worried about. This one isn’t, hey, they’re going to steal our jobs, like all the AI stuff, but, but it is something where people do get pretty cautious about that. And so it seems like being able to to design both for the eventual use, but also the hopefully hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clinicians who are going to try them on in a conference booth. You know, there’s just so much into it. It feels very complex. And so it sounds like you’ve set up a team that has the expertise. I think there’s the all of the development and research expertise, and then there’s also, it’s a product that will need to be manufactured and shipped, and so there’s all of the product pieces too. So yeah, it sounds pretty stressful. I can see where that’s coming from, but it also sounds like it’s super exciting and just a way to to get into a different space and provide a new mechanism of healing.

Dr. Steve Dansinger 33:39
Yeah, we pointed at the EMDR community, not just because it’s my community and it’s my knowledge base, but also because that was the first, most obvious use for it that I could see, and that there’s some research and experience. You know, there’s 30 years of people using machines to provide bilateral stimulation, so at the very least, it’s a new bilateral stimulation machine. And then in terms of the resourcing possibilities, sound, vibration, music, you know, it’s anecdotally and research wise, that is a powerful, powerful, powerful intervention. And, you know, and then the fact that it’s coming through the feet, you know, the idea that we’re helping to ground someone, literally, at the end of a session. These are just, you know, sort of case study style, sort of possibilities. And we have done a little of the conference circuit, and it went very well. You know, people. We did it a number of years ago at EMDRIA in Orange County, when it was the previous company, and that got a lot of attention, and we’re going to do it again in EMDRIA in Orange County, 2025 it’s happening here. But yeah, we’ve been to a few conferences, and people you know, pulled out their credit cards, but we weren’t ready to take them. So.

Curt Widhalm 34:58
For those who can’t make it to the EMDRIA conference, where can people find out more about this and all of the other wonderful stuff that you’re doing?

Dr. Steve Dansinger 35:07
Well, the center of all things would be DoctorDanziger.com. I mean, that’s where can find me. You know, you can find information about EMDR trainings. If you’re not trained in EMDR yet and you’d like to do it in a mindfulness space. Would love to have you. The products are at haptechholdings.com. The brand name it’s looking like it’s going to be New Ground, but we’re still under the under the holding company name. You can see a little bit of of what’s going on there. And then I’ve written some books. There’s the last couple were both with Jamie Marich, Healing Addiction with EMDR therapy. If you’re an EMDR therapist, you might be interested in that. And also EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma Focused Care is another one EMDR therapy. Jamie wrote a book called Trauma and the 12 Steps, and I wrote a meditation reader and a step workbook with her for that. So that’s another thing that might be of interest to some folks.

Curt Widhalm 36:11
And we will include links to all of those, including some of the episodes that we’ve had with Jamie on the podcast. And you can find those over in our show notes at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media for updates and join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, to continue on with the conversation and until next time I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Dr. Steve Dansinger.

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