The son of Kathryn Carr, the author of this book, was not the only one to make such strides. Kathryn noted that other children saw significant gains as well after having gone through the MNRI® reflex integration program:

• A child with an underdeveloped corpus callosum, poor balance, hyptonia, dyspraxia and learning challenges completed a three-year college program that allowed her to live independently.
• A child with autism and severe behavioral challenges learned to dance.
• Some children with cerebral palsy walked for the first time.
• Other children with autism spoke for the first time.

What Is MNRI®?

MNRI® (Masgutova Neurosensorimotor Reflex Integration) is a process developed by Svetlana Masgutova PhD to integrate retained primary reflexes. Also known as the Masgutova Method, MNRI® facilitates primary reflex integration through specific depths of proprioceptive touch and movement. Integrated reflexes are the foundation of human development and survival.

“Primary reflex patterns are the building blocks for human development and serve as subordinate roles to more-complex automatic motor-reflex schemes and learned motor skills. If these primary reflexes do not emerge, develop, mature, and integrate naturally, a child can have physical, cognitive, social, and emotional challenges.

 

If the basic reflex pattern is incorrect, the body will signal a dysfunction or deeper pathology within some reflex pattern component. As a result, the child remains in a state of ‘negative protection,’ meaning they continue to exhibit emotional dysregulation or various atypical movements and behaviors.”

Children with the following conditions often have retained primary reflexes:

• Learning disability
• Lyme disease
• Nonfatal drowning
• PANS/PANDAS
• Sensory Processing Disorder
• Speech and language issues
• Strabismus and amblyopia
• Toe walking
• Trauma survival

MNRI® is part of Documenting Hope’s FLIGHT™ Study, which aims to test the hypothesis that comprehensive personalized lifestyle interventions will result in symptom abatement, improved health and potentially full diagnosis reversal. Heather Tallman-Ruhm MD, the medical director of the Documenting Hope Projects says that “(Masgutova’s) work has given us another validated tool to assess, measure, and support a bio-individualized and carefully sequenced intervention plan for children with modern chronic illnesses.”

Who Is Svetlana Masgutova PhD?

Svetlana Masgutova PhD is a world-renowned authority on reflex integration and neurodevelopment. She earned a PhD in psychology in 1988 in Russia and a post-graduate degree in clinical neuro-speech development in Poland. She is the author of more than 200 published books and articles on psychology, education, neurosensorimotor reflex integration and sensorimotor-based development.

Dr. Masgutova was heavily influenced by the work of Ivan M. Sechenov, who had groundbreaking work in the understanding of reflex reactions. He was known as the patriarch of Russian neurophysiology; he proved the central nervous system controlled whether a reflex action could occur. Psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky, physiologist Ivan P. Pavlov, endocrinologist Hans Selye, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, neurophysiologist Nikolai A. Bernstein and physiologist Walter Cannon all also played a role in her work and understanding of the integration of retained primary reflexes.

Vygotsky’s work in particular was the basis for the development of MNRI® because he believed that “there is no ceiling in the development of a human.”

Originally hailing from the Kirgiz-Miyakinsky District in the Bashkortostan Republic of Russia, Dr. Masgutova is the great-granddaughter of an osteopathic village healer. She wanted to be a body-oriented psychologist since she was an early teen.

She is imbued with her family’s values of serving those who are sick, vulnerable, or suffering. Her father told her that, “You must always help someone who is in need or cannot speak for themselves. You must help anyone vulnerable until your very end.” These values, as well as her personal life tragedies, filled her with compassion and empathy.

She realized that her life’s purpose is to help survivors of stress and trauma as well as people with neurodevelopmental challenges after her four months of working with children who were injured in the 1989 Ufa train accident. In her work with these children, she realized that talk therapy retraumatized them. Instead, she developed in real time reflex-integration techniques with hands-on neuromodulation techniques she learned from her great-grandparents..

It is her work with trauma survivors of Ufa, Chernobyl and Sandy Hook that informed her insights into primary reflex integration. Those with retained reflexes are often in a state of trauma and have an ongoing fight-or-flight response. In order for the brain and body to heal, the body needs to know that it is safe. This is the foundation of MNRI®.

What’s in the Book?

Although this book is a biography of Dr. Masgutova’s life (so far), it also contains:

• Explanations of what primary reflexes are
• Examples of common retained reflexes
• Discussions of problems that can arise from retained reflexes
• Causes of retained reflexes
• Testimonials from professionals who participated in the course
• Testimonials from parents whose children went through the MNRI® course
• Personal history of Dr. Masgutova detailing how and why she developed MNRI®

This book is useful for those wishing to understand how and why Dr. Masgutova developed her unique healing program. The personal stories and testimonials can serve as a gentle introduction to the program. Those wishing detailed instructions and exercises for MNRI® reflex integration can get more information from the numerous books that Dr. Masgutova has written (see Resources, below), her websites (see Resources, below), the MNRI® therapists that she has trained and/or live events that she hosts.

About Kathryn Carr

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