Mentions in this video:
The Embodied Mind https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.net/courses/the-embodied-mind-2-hrs
Epigenetics (3 hr reading course) https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.net/courses/epigenetics-2-hrs
Epigenetics with John Arden (free) https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.net/courses/epigenetics-with-john-arden
the Heart and Coherence (2.5 hr reading course) https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.net/courses/the-heart-and-coherence
Coherence: The Heart Connection to Personal, Social and Global Health https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.net/courses/coherence-global-health (0.75hr reading course)
For professionals go to https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.net
Transcript:
In 2022 I had the pleasure of talking to Dr. Thomas R. Verny – a psychiatrist who has challenged traditional ideas about the mind.
His 1981 book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, explored how memories and experiences in the womb can shape us for life. The book was published in 27 countries and showed that even before the brain is fully formed, fetuses can remember and react to their surroundings.
This, of course, raises the question of how memories can exist so early, before the brain is developed? Years later, Dr Verny learned about cases like a 44-year-old French civil servant who had almost no brain tissue but lived a normal life with a family and job. Other stories described people doing well after large parts of their brains were removed because of epilepsy or tumors. These are challenging findings, to say the least! If people can still think and live normally with little brain tissue, where does the mind really exist?
This question led to Dr Verny’s 2021 book, The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness, and Our Bodies. And it was at this point in his career that I managed to catch up with him. He believes the mind is not just in the brain but spread throughout the whole body. He says intelligence and consciousness are found everywhere in us, and even non-neural cells can store memories, adapt to their surroundings, and shape who we are.
He uses evidence from many fields, including physiology, genetics, epigenetics, quantum physics, and cell biology. Cells can be surprisingly intelligent—even single-celled organisms show memory-like behaviors. We’ve got a few interviews with Dr Jon Lieff who has studied the amazing abilities of cells in the natural world. Cells in our bodies seem to use similar methods as neurons to store memories. Groups of cells connect through tissues like the heart and gut, which is sometimes called our “second brain” and talk to the brain by highways like the vagus nerve and more slowly through other means. Most serotonin, which affects mood and mental health, is made in the gut, not the brain, and is an important part of this communication network. The heart also creates a magnetic field much stronger than the brain’s, connecting us within and also with each other in ways that may seem more spiritual than electo-magnetic. These characteristics of the heart have been well researched and we have several articles explaining the science behind it.
What’s so very interesting is Dr Verny talking about heart transplants, where people sometimes notice changes in personality, foods they likes, or even dreams that seem to come from the donor. This suggests that memories might be stored in the cells of the heart and are accessible to our consciousness – even if they were someone else’s memories.
He also looks at generational trauma, where stress or experiences can be passed down through genes. This can show up as unexplained fears or nightmares in later generations.
Epigenetics shows that we are always changing. Our thoughts and attitudes can affect which genes are active. In a well-known Harvard study, hotel maids who started thinking of their work as exercise lost weight, lowered their blood pressure, and improved their health, even though they did not change their routines. This shows that mindset can shape our biology.
Epigenetics and generational traits, including the stress of trauma from previous generations, has been established as a legitimate factor in our understanding of trauma. I’ll put some links in the notes if you want to read more.
I guess one of the big takeaways from Dr Verny’s work is that we’ve often put the brain above everything else, the master organ, following a top-down way of thinking. Medicine usually focuses on the brain first, but Dr Verny suggests we should look at the whole body to understand what’s going on and inform us for better mental health outcomes.
At The Science of Psychotherapy we advocate a holistic approach: meeting people where they are, listening to the body’s wisdom, and exploring the mysteries of consciousness beyond simple explanations.
To help you in your holistic approach we’ve got a course that draws directly from our interview with Dr Verny, as well as a fascinating discussion with Dr Jon Lieff, author of The Secret Language of Cells, to explore embodied consciousness, cellular intelligence, and practical applications for mental health, trauma healing, and personal growth.
In Dr Lieff’s interview, we dive into how cells communicate like intelligent beings—making decisions, forming alliances with microbes, and even directing brain functions. Discover how T-cells in the brain signal neurons to create “sickness behaviour” during illness, or how depression can stem from inflammatory processes where immune cells slow neuron production, leading to brain fog.
Like Dr Verny, Dr Lieff challenges brain-centric views, arguing that mind emerges from distributed cellular networks, quantum effects in molecular clusters, and cooperation across nature, not competition. He talks about the aging brain’s superior pattern recognition and wisdom when kept active through meaningful activities, which – with my aging brain – was very encouraging. And he touches on how psychotherapy sparks neuroplasticity by unblocking cellular flows, integrating meditation, cognitive therapies, and trauma reprocessing.
So if you want to shift from brain-only views to a fuller, more integrated understanding of the self—then check out our course The Embodied Mind.
Dr Verny’s and Dr Lieff’s works remind us: we are not just our brains; we are whole, living, remembering beings, alive with intelligent conversations at every level.