The video presents a biographical portrait of Dr. Emmett Miller, MD, tracing his journey from a childhood in inner‑city New York, through formative experiences of violence, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb, to a lifelong mission to alleviate human suffering. After studying science, mathematics, and medicine, he founded one of the first integrative medical practices in the early 1970s, introducing a paradigm that places stress as a central factor in disease and healing. He created “software for the mind” – guided‑imagery audio cassettes that combine his soothing voice with nature sounds and music, teaching meditation, mindfulness, and creative visualization as tools for self‑healing and peak performance. In 1977 he co‑founded the Cancer Support and Education Center, offering self‑help tools to cancer patients and training health professionals. He taught at major universities, collaborated with the Esalen Institute, and integrated Eastern (Chinese) healing philosophies with Western medicine, positioning himself as a bridge between traditions. Miller describes stress as a response we create, emphasizes the need to rewire belief structures to change the nervous system, and warns of “spiritual abuse” – a cultural trauma that underlies many illnesses. He cites modern neuroscience evidence of neuroplasticity, urging individuals to harness creative imagination to heal themselves and transform society. Testimonials highlight the lasting impact of his recordings, his distinctive voice, and the continued relevance of his programs, now available via drmiller.com and shopdrmiller.com. The narrative culminates in a call to create a better future through conscious thought and action.
Chapters
I want to introduce you to my father, Dr. Emmett Miller. Long before medical school, Dr. Miller was called to his healing path. As a boy, he grew up in the inner city of New York. In the 1940s and '50s, he saw firsthand the destructive power of violence. Then, at age 12, he learned about the Nazi Holocaust and the destructive power of the atomic bomb. A life mission began to form: to dedicate his life efforts to help transform the system that's responsible for so much personal and collective human suffering. He studied science and mathematics to learn how to transform systems. Then he attended medical school at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City to better understand how the human body and mind function in health and disease and how they can be healed. In his family medical practice, he researched the essence of the healing process at both the individual and the collective level. He then opened one of the first integrative medical practices. Dr. Miller realized that to release the power of the mind to heal, a paradigm shift is needed, a basic change in how we think about ourselves and our world. So in the early '70s, he introduced the world to an entirely new approach to medicine— holistic or integrative medicine. The key to this approach was bringing the concept of stress as a major factor in disease and healing to the medical field and to our culture.
What's important, stress is not something that happens to you, stress is what you do with what happens to you. And if you see the world as an obstacle course, if you see stumbling blocks instead of stepping stones, then the stress that you experience is more damaging to you.
Dr. Miller's next job was to let the world know of this wonderful power of the mind to heal the body and the emotions, and to reveal a powerful tool for reprogramming the mind and rewiring the brain. For the first time, the powerful techniques he had developed—meditation, mindfulness, and creative visualization—were made available worldwide through his widely acclaimed invention. The guided imagery audio cassette. These programs, which he called software for the mind, provided self-applied mind tools that showed us how to harness the energy of stress to heal ourselves and to perform at our peak.
All right, we have a lot of excitement, a lot of energy in the studio right now, and we've asked Dr. Emmett Miller to join us. He is a stress management expert and puts out tapes like this, "Letting Go of Stress," "Easing into Sleep," which is a big factor in everybody's life. And it's nice to have you here on the show. It's good to be here. You're a psychologist? I'm a physician. Physician? Yes. You mean a regular physician?
Yes, well, my specialty is psychophysiological medicine. That's what we need around here. The interrelationship between the mind and the body and health and disease.
To fully heal and transform your life, regular practice is essential. His tapes made it easy and effective for the very first time. They featured his soothing and inspiring voice along with nature sounds and beautiful music, which studies show can markedly benefit healing and recovery. They were quickly found useful for all mental, emotional, and behavioral issues, and were effective for all ages.
I love visual imagery. I do it in the morning and before I go to bed at night, and I like to visualize going to Lake Tahoe and, um, going and working with my cells there at the lake. Dr. Miller, he was great, and he helped me find ways that I could work in my life to my cells.
When I first heard of Dr. Miller's recordings and I got one, and then I noticed not only was his voice like magical and relaxing and hypnotic in itself, but he mixed in beautiful music and then nature sounds and the artistry of it. And now some 30 years later to hear that he's still got the best voice out there. And I've heard a lot of imitations, but nothing comes close to Emmett's voice. It's magical, and everyone I turn on to it agrees.
And again, it's kind of like investing in life.
And, uh— In 1977, along with Maggie Creighton and Dr. William Buchholz, he founded the Cancer Support and Education Center, the first to offer self-help and healing tools to cancer patients and train health professionals in these techniques. Soon millions were waking up to the power we have to prevent disease and to heal ourselves. Throughout the '70s and '80s, Dr. Miller taught his groundbreaking approaches in major universities and medical schools.
Some of Emmett's early pupils in Hawaii came from a workshop he conducted at the University of Hawaii School of Nursing. Dean Helen Burnside explained explains the reason behind the affiliation.
And it's my firm belief that Emmett is on the forefront of what it is that will occur in the future.
Recently there has been a new movement rising to the forefront of medicine: wellness. Here in Hawaii, wellness made its public debut in late March at the Statewide Wellness Celebration. One of the keynote speakers at this conference was Dr. Emmett Miller.
We go to medical school and we learn how to give medication, how to combat symptoms, and how to do surgery. And we practice this for years, and as we practice it, we gradually begin to notice that there's something more, that there's something that's kind of elusive. To bring good to other people, to bring health to other people, to alleviate suffering, to allow people to feel more comfortable, and at home in their bodies.
Another of Dr. Miller's innovations was his integration of wisdom teachings from many of the world's cultures, thereby creating even greater wholeness in his work.
Much of Emmett's success in individuality stemmed from his melding of the East and West in the field of medicine. Mei-Li Lo, faculty member of the School of Nursing, elaborates.
He's the first doctor, MD, in this country that I knew of to integrate the Chinese healing philosophy with the Western medicine. Yeah, Yaman, this is where it's at. Helping people realize the power is in the mind. And we do, we can control our thoughts. In controlling our thoughts, we control our feelings. Therefore, we can control our lives. Life can be beautiful if we decide it's going to be beautiful, but, but to utilize that power, we need lots of training. I say welcome, Emmett, we need you.
Now, 40 years later, scientific studies have provided a mountain of scientific evidence. More than 80% of all our illnesses and dysfunctions are caused and exacerbated by stress. The physiological friction from unresolved inner conflicts, mental and emotional conflicts between different aspects of the mind and the nervous system. Further, it is clear that the best way to relieve and heal our bodies, minds, relationships, and lives is to let go of excess stress, focus our creative mind, and transform our thinking in our lives. Our minds are much more powerful than most of us realize, despite the noxious propaganda flooding our media and our social media, striving to prevent us from realizing and using this power. If we permit these distortions to cut us off from our inner wisdom and potential for change, then we will continue to be individually and collectively trapped in a world spinning out of control, unable to heal ourselves and transform the system. Most of us are not really doing what we came here to do, and this creates even more inner dissonance. It's high time we go beyond these delusional limits, recognize the truth of who we are, and cultivate the courage to heal and create the world that we want to live in. It's time for us to rescript our minds and bodies, use our neuroplasticity to grow new neurons, dendrites, and synapses, to literally rewire our brains, and skillfully use our creative imagination and emotional power to heal ourselves deeply and transform our world. This is my message.
In his therapeutic work with patients in deep states of trance, Dr. Miller began to realize that the fundamental source of our individual illness and dysfunctions, as well as our collective angst as a society, is a kind of PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder—a breakdown in wholeness as a result of what he calls spiritual abuse.
[FOREIGN] Each person has been highly programmed by a very, very sick culture and media, and so all of us have deep wounds in the psyche because we haven't been given what we need. The human being is born seeking love. That's what makes us grow, the way light causes a young plant to grow. If you cover that plant so the sun can't get to it, the leaves wither and they're pale. When the human being doesn't receive love, doesn't have the sense of being surrounded by a loving, supportive family who can look in the eyes even of that infant and say, you are absolutely beautiful. Or as Kunta Kinte's father said when he took him outside the hut and held him up toward the night sky and said, "Behold, Kunta Kinte, the universe, the only thing more powerful than yourself." Well, what if we grew up in a world that taught us that? Our spirits would be nurtured. But for most of us, we don't get that. That's what I call spiritual abuse. As a result, we don't understand at a deep level how important it is to take care of our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our relationships.
One of the seminal experiences in Dr. Miller's life took place in 1970 when Dick Price, the inspiration and co-founder of Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Sir, read Dr. Miller's book Selective Awareness: The New Science of Mind-Body Medicine. Dick recognized the transformative potential of Dr. Miller's holistic approach and the mind tools that he had introduced to the world—guided imagery, meditation, and mindfulness. Together, these two visionaries studied and led workshops and trainings at Esalen, integrating Dr. Miller's work with the approaches of the Eastern philosophies and Gestalt psychology. Over the 40 years that he taught there, Dr. Miller also studied with Virginia Satir, the inventor of family therapy, Alan Watts, Gregory Bateson, Moshe Feldenkrais, Al Wang, Stan Grof, Ida Roth, and Babatunde Olatunji, as well as co-leading groups in healing and spirituality with Ram Dass. Dr. Miller's life goal has been to create and make these powerful, life-changing mind tools available to as many people as possible throughout the world at the lowest possible cost.
Although in life we may be called to heal ourselves or others as a result of disease or dysfunction at the physical level, the ultimate source of our transformation is a fundamental change in our beliefs.
Changing your belief structures changes the structure of your nervous system. It rewires your brain, and the internal congruence that replaces the inner conflict then leads to healing, health, and peak performance.
Somebody said to Mrs. Gandhi, how is it that "Your husband can speak so eloquently without using notes, never contradict himself, never lose his place." And so she's, "Well, you know, for you and me, we think one thing, we say another, and we do a third. But for Gandhiji, they're all the same." That internal congruence is the essence of healing. It's the essence of getting done what you came here to do. Dr.
Miller's life goal has been to create and make these powerful, life-changing mind tools available to as many people as possible throughout the world at the lowest possible cost.
Dr. Miller's integrity in launching this approach 30-some years ago and sticking with it and developing it. The beauty of this work of Dr. Miller's is that it can be used side by side with medicine and enhance the treatment of all kinds of diseases by empowering people to take charge of their own health.
These audio and video programs guide people through the steps to manage their stress and harness its energy for deep healing and peace. Peak performance, to awaken the innate potential for healing and optimal performance, and to help us all discover the power, inspiration, wisdom, and love deep within and all around us.
And the next day after the surgery was completed, the three surgeons came in separately to check on me, and each one, I swear they had listened to the tape, and each, each one said to me, I can't believe how your body cooperated. I can't believe how little blood you lost.
To learn how to heal yourself, rewrite your life script, and transform your world, visit Dr. Miller's free multimedia website, drmiller.com, for further information. That's drmiller.com. And visit shopdrmiller.com to sample or purchase one of the hundreds of powerful and entertaining programs he has produced specifically to meet your individual needs.
What I wanted to add is from now on, if I have patients, you know, coming to me or clients coming to me, I would really refer to Dr. Miller, but not other doctors first, and, you know, get a different type of therapy instead of using the traditional way of cure.
The future is not someplace we're going. The future is a place that we are creating at this moment with every thought, word, and deed. At last, it's time to create the future we really want.
Working with Advanced Med Academy, Dr. Miller also has developed a certification course in mind-body medicine for integrative physicians and other health and healing professionals. For more information about this groundbreaking online training, please visit AdvancedMedAcademy.com.
