Dermoneuromodulating - Treating the Patient as if Their Nervous System Really Mattered

Overview

This online course offers a modern, neuroscience-informed approach to manual therapy: gentle, respectful, and rooted in the nervous system.

Developed by Diane Jacobs, the Dermoneuromodulating (DNM) approach recognizes that pain and movement difficulties often stem not from muscles or fascia—but from an irritated nervous system. You'll learn how to interact with the skin and cutaneous nerves to encourage a calming, modulatory effect—without aggressive techniques or outdated biomechanical narratives.

With nearly 10 hours of lecture and lab demonstrations, quizzes, and multilingual subtitles, this is one of the most comprehensive DNM trainings available.

What is Dermoneuromodulating (DMN)?

Dermo → Skin
Neuro  → Nervous System
Modulation → Change

Dermoneuromodulating (DNM) is a method for handling the human body and, most of all, its nervous system, in order to facilitate change, particularly in terms of its pain and motor outputs. DNM will not replace everything therapists have already learned, but it may provide a new conceptual container for it. At the very least it provides the participant with a novel approach to handling that is patient‑ and nervous system‑friendly.

Light and interactive, DNM ignores musculoskeletal structure and instead targets pain directly, by focusing on the nervous system, continuous from skin cell to sense of self, directly. The only “structures” considered in any depth will be skin and the cutaneous nerve, long ignored in manual therapy ‑ participants will be exposed, perhaps for the first time, to the extensive branched system that innervates skin.

DNM will provide participants with an expanded frame through which they can set up the all-important treatment relationship, assess patients and their pain problems from the brain’s perspective, teach the patient about pain production without faulting them, recruit their cooperation for manual handling, and put them in charge of their own recovery. DNM is based on Melzack’s Neuromatrix framework of pain as output, the most clinically useful pain model in existence from an interactive manual therapy standpoint. Persisting pain is the reason most patients come to see a manual therapist.

DNM is a fully interactive treatment model: unlike a strictly operative model, in which, for example, biomechanical “faults” must be found, then “corrected”, DNM considers biomechanical expression as defense, not defect. We put “pain” first; i.e., we put the nervous system of the patient (not their anatomy), and their own subjective complaint, their own interoceptive reality, front and center in the treatment encounter; we add a bit of strategic novel stimuli, then we wait a few minutes, and allow the nervous system to self‑regulate. Subsequent improvement in motor output is assessed and regarded as a sign that the nervous system now works with less intrinsic stress.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will:

1. Describe the role of cutaneous nerves in pain modulation
2. Explain the theoretical foundations of DNM, including the neuromatrix model
3. Master effective methods to access and engage the nervous system at multiple levels
4. Apply DNM concepts in clinical reasoning and patient communication
5. Use light manual techniques to stimulate calm within the nervous system
6. Apply science-based manual therapy strategies informed by contemporary pain science and neuroscience
7. Refine palpation and manual handling techniques toward qualities that are warm, slow, light, kind, responsive, and intelligent

Audience

This online course is for:

• Manual therapists (PTs, OTs, RMTs) seeking a gentler, evidence-based approach

• Clinicians interested in pain neuroscience education

• Practitioners treating chronic pain, central sensitization, or complex presentations

• Anyone ready to move away from structural, tissue-based models of therapy

Course Access

• Format: On-demand video

• Subtitles available in 20+ languages (watch the free preview and click on the CC button to learn which languages the course is available in)

• Lifetime access

• Includes quizzes, downloadable slides, and certificate of completion