Pain Relief Massage Chiang Mai: NeuroThai: Rebooting the Nervous System (DNM)
“NeuroThai (or Pain treatments) is a gentle method of interacting with clients to help them resolve pain, regain function, and feel better through kind and compassionate touch. This is a truly holistic approach, which treats the clients’ nervous system and directly communicates with the brain”
What is NeuroThai (or DermoNeuroModulation)
NeuroThai combines the modality of Thai Massage with the approach of targeting the clients nervous system (called DermoNeuroModulation) to help our clients with many pain presentations. From Thai massage we take the tradition of working on the mat, the importance of the listening touch, the mind body connection, body mechanisms and the creativity. This we combine with the principles of an approach called DNM (DermoNeuroModulation) where the focus is on the nervous system.
An effective approach of manual therapy for addressing pain and movement restriction, born from an understanding of the importance of the role our nervous system plays with the experience of pain. It is a way to hack the nervous system and persuade it to reboot itself. Which allows us to treat a lot of pain presentations safely.
It is a hands-on, interactive approach, which focuses on the nervous system from skin to brain. Techniques are not painful and generally involve light to moderate pressure, hand-holds are slow, intelligent, responsive, and effective. The idea of working with the nervous system also comes back in Chi Nei Tsang where we target the vagal nerve.
NeuroThai approach:
- A truly holistic approach as it not only looks at the ‘biological’ causes of pain but also the social and psychological causes
- Treats the nervous system, which is responsible for signaling our brain
- Compatible with pain science and neuropsychology
- Safe for nearly any pain presentations
- Considers the nervous system first and directly involves client in their own process
- Techniques are: Slow, Light, Kind, Intelligent, Responsive, Effective
Who can benefit from pain treatments?
People with chronic or persistent pain syndromes that may present as:
- (Chronic) muscular or skeletal pain (like back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, etc.)
- Non-specific pain and discomfort
- Have limited range of motion
- Nerve entrapments, tunnel syndromes and neural irritation
- Muscular bracing or spasm
- Other presentations of musculoskeletal dysfunction
Both courses and treatments available. For courses scroll down; for treatments: click here.
Disclaimer: As everybody reacts differently to treatments there is no guarantee to a specific outcome.
5 Days Course: Learn How to Treat Pain by Treating the Nervous System
Why learn NeuroThai?
As a practitioner of more than 20 years, I have always been very interested in how to help my clients who are suffering from ‘Chronic’ pain, trying many different modalities. Most modalities though are tissue-based and don’t pay any attention to the nervous system. It is the nervous system which is the link between our body and our brain. So when I found the approach of how to directly connect to the nervous system (called DNM or DermoNeuroModulation) something clicked and I thought to myself: ‘why didn’t we pay attention earlier to this?’
If you want to learn how to treat clients who are suffering from pain (like back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain etc.) this is the course for you. Through this course you will not only have a better understanding of the ‘science’ of pain, but also learn treatment techniques and an approach of how to massage clients in a gentle and safe way who are suffering from pain.
In this approach, our focus will be the nervous system. It is the nervous system that communicates with our brain. And by giving a new/novel input to our nervous system we can help people who are in pain much better.
As a caution I need to state that in no way this is ‘the magic bullet’ and that we can ‘heal’ everybody who is suffering from chronic pain. But this approach for sure will equip you to help people with pain much better and much more effectively. Not only through manual therapy, but also by how to communicate with them. And it also gives you a deeper understanding of the science of pain.
About NeuroThai / Pain treatments
NeuroThai combines the modality of Thai Massage with the approach of targeting the client’s nervous system to help our clients with many pain presentations. From Thai massage we take the tradition of working on the mat, the importance of the listening touch, the mind-body connection, body mechanisms and creativity. This we combine with the principles of an approach called DNM (DermoNeuroModulation) where the focus is on the nervous system.
- It is possible to combine NeuroThai within a session of Thai Massage (or any other massage modality),
- Or it is possible to make it a ‘stand-alone massage’.
It is important to understand that NeuroThai is not a new modality, but it is an idea or an approach that can be infused within any massage modality.
What is revolutionary within NeuroThai (and which comes from DNM) though is that the focus will be on the client’s nervous system, which is the connection between the brain and our body.
What will you learn?
Shifting from a tissue-based approach towards the nervous system, it is possible to integrate this revolutionary new approach into your existing massage practice. Although this course is very hands-on (80% of the course) we will also cover the theoretical background—like how the nervous system works, how this fits in with modern Pain science, neurodynamics, the biopsychosocial model of pain, etc.
Course Content:
- How to treat pain, dysfunctions, and limited range in the neck, back, shoulders, jaw, spine, hips, sacrum, hands, arms, legs and more.
- Overall more than 50 to 60 techniques, all with the intention to decrease pain and/or increase range of motion.
- A whole new approach (NeuroThai/pain treatments/DermoNeuroModulation), bringing the focus of our practice onto the nervous system: The brain–skin connection, and how by touching the skin we are communicating with the brain through the cutaneous nerves.
- What is pain, based on the Biopsychosocial model of pain. A truly holistic and science-based approach where one looks not only at the biological causes of pain but also at the social and psychological causes.
- Pain Neuroscience education: How to educate/explain to our clients in ‘normal’ language how chronic pain works, helping to clear up misunderstandings/misinformation about chronic pain.
- Touch physiology (or quality of touch): The importance of touch and how touch works; a touch that is Slow, Light, Kind, Intelligent, Responsive, Effective, and Warm.
- Therapeutic Alliance + Movement: The importance of your relationship with the client—interactive instead of operative—making the client an active part in the healing process.
- Neurodynamics or mobilization of the nervous system: Communication between different parts of the nervous system in relation to the musculoskeletal system.
| Group Course Details | Next Course Dates |
|---|---|
| • Open to: Everyone • Duration: 5 Days (around 25 hours) • Cost: 8,900 Baht • Includes: Digital textbook, online videos, and certificate Also available as a private course. |
• 08/06 – 12/06/2026 • 03/08 – 07/08/2026 • 23/11 – 27/11/2026 • 21/12 – 25/12/2026 • 25/01 – 29/01/2027 • 22/02 – 26/02/2027 • 22/03 – 26/03/2027 |
Definition of DNM (DermoNeuroModulation)
Dermo refers to the skin, neuro refers to the nervous system, and modulation means change. In other words: using the skin to affect the nervous system to produce change. This method of handling the body is intelligent in that it places a high significance on how our bodies are organized in receiving, discerning, and evaluating information, and also on which system is most responsible for orchestrating change. DNM recognizes the role of our nervous system, targets the vast array of touch-receptors in the skin (about 6 yards of nerve receptors per square inch of skin), and uses a specific type of input conducive to working with the brain to make changes.