How German New Medicine Is Changing The Way I View My Health

Whether you believe in the mainstream medical world or holistic healthcare, there’s no denying that so many of us are living in a state of fear. We’re scared of germs, Big Pharma, environmental toxins, seed oils, EMF radiation, endocrine disruptors, and even the contaminated tap water we’ve got in our municipal water sources. 

And while I wholly subscribe to living as low tox a lifestyle as enjoyably possible, I’ve been experiencing ailments that just don’t make sense according to my wellness practices. I eat organic, I don’t use toxic products, and I’ve never been on the contraceptive pill. Reasoning these symptoms away as mere “bad luck” or blaming mystery genes or my invisible immune system just didn’t cut it for me. I wanted to know the root cause.  

Enter German New Medicine. 

I first came across German New Medicine (GNM) on the Freedom From Fear podcast, where an episode with Annie Heatly, a former psychotherapist-turned-homeschooling mom, piqued my interest. Hearing how she applied GNM to her own health journey after having diagnoses of leaky gut, SIBO, MCAS, and food sensitivity labels got me thinking about this whole mind-over-matter train of thought. Naturally, my curious self got in touch with Heatly, Dr. Melissa Sell who is known as one of the GNM “OGs,” and the podcast hosts Ashlee Newberry and Abigail Puccioni to get them to explain the concept of GNM for Evie Magazine.

The Need-To-Know Background

Discovered by conventionally-trained medical doctor Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer in the early 1980s, German New Medicine is “essentially a roadmap for understanding the true root cause of both physical and mental health symptoms,” Newberry and Puccioni told me in their email.

Its founder, Dr. Hamer, earned his degree in radiology by 24 and his medical license two years later. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer a few months after the loss of his son in a tragic accident. Having always lived a very healthy lifestyle, he suspected that this cancer diagnosis must have been connected to losing his son. 

After years of research, Dr. Hamer concluded that not only cancer, but every single symptom in the body, stems from what he coined “biological conflict shock.” Newberry and Puccioni explain this as “something emotionally distressing that catches you off-guard.”

Think of all those moments when something unexpected happens in life, from the huge to the seemingly mundane: someone breaks up with you out of the blue, you find out you’re being made redundant at work, you get a call from your child’s school that they’ve been injured, you get in your car and can’t get it to start, you realize you forgot your wallet… The list goes on. While some of these have natural resolutions, others can be more complex, actually leaving a mark of sorts on your brain, and that’s where we can see supposed sickness seep in.  

However, this way of thinking about health is not without its controversy. As the Head Internist at the Cancer Clinic of the University of Munich, Dr. Hamer had access to numerous patient files and was able to see a pattern unfold between symptoms and specific traumas on over 200 medical records, seeing “lesions” in specific parts of the brain (depending on the perceived conflict) on CT scans. Dr. Hamer submitted these findings to the University of Tübingen in 1981, but they rejected his research, and he eventually lost his job within the mainstream medical industry. He then released his book Cancer, Sickness of the Soul in 1984. He was asked to renounce his findings in 1986 but refused. 

In 1998, the University of Vienna recognized the authenticity of his discoveries but never published his work. And by 2004, Dr. Hamer was accused of malpractice for the death(s) of patients he’d never seen in real life but who denied mainstream medical treatment in preference of GNM’s non-invasive approach to healthcare. Other allegations, according to one outlet, include antisemitism, as he apparently once said that “no Jew ever gets chemo” with the belief that chemotherapy is a weapon of mass destruction. 

Despite all of this infamy, it was his patent on several medical devices, such as the Hamer scalpel, that allowed him to continue to see private patients for free until his death in 2017. 

Fast forward to now, and my attention was piqued by the many millennials and Gen Zers raving about GNM on social media. And, considering that I couldn’t find enough substantial evidence for the above accusations and try to live by a motto of personal responsibility, I chose to dig into GNM more to find out why it’s growing in popularity.  

German New Medicine in a Nutshell

“Essentially, when something shocking happens that exceeds our emotional capacity in that moment, our biology feels threatened on an ancient-primal level. Since our biology is primarily concerned with survival and reproduction, this psyche-brain-organ relationship activates a 'special biological program' to assist us,” Heatly tells me.

“It is important to understand, however, that GNM is not a modality. It is not something you ‘do’ to heal,” Newberry and Puccioni tell Evie Magazine. “Rather, it is a paradigm – a radically different way of understanding health and the body that is grounded in the belief that the body is always adapting in a biologically meaningful way, based on your unique perception of the world around you and what your psyche has perceived as a threat.” 

In a mic-dropping line, Heatly says, “The body is controlled by the brain, [and GNM] understands the psycho-biological process at play, [meaning] the basis of all 'dis-ease' is actually adaptation...Our biology doesn’t make mistakes.” 

“Self-healing is not embraced because it's not profitable.” - Annie Heatly

TLDR? Think of our ailments as part of our individual story; a biological blueprint for understanding ourselves and the various changes, traumas, and losses we go through manifested into physical, tangible symptoms. 

This so far all confirms my own suspicions that there has to be something else at play that’s blocking me from radiant, thriving wellness. 

How GNM Actually Works 

While all of the above may sound good in theory, I asked the experts to contextualize it in practice.

Their first tip? Don’t suffer in isolation. 

“You can’t prevent ‘conflict shocks’ from happening, but you can support yourself by asking for help, telling someone what happened, and being reminded that you are not alone,” Newberry and Puccioni tell Evie Magazine. 

Okay, but what exactly happens when we experience these conflicts? And is it stress that causes all symptoms, I wondered. 

“It is not a complete description to say that stress or fear cause symptoms,” Dr. Sell tells me. “In a ‘conflict shock’ moment, your biology responds by turning on a ‘Biological Special Program’ which transforms the physiology and tissue of an organ in order to help you to survive this [occurrence.]”

“In the first phase, the tissue is actively adapting its function by tissue growth or tissue erosion, and in the second phase the tissue is restored to normal function,” Dr. Sell continues. “During the second phase, the body employs microbial helpers to assist in the tissue decomposition or tissue growth that is needed to restore the organ to normal function. Microbes are present at places in the body where there have been tissue adaptations. The microbes did not cause the changes to the tissues, [but rather], they come as the clean up and construction crew to return the body to homeostasis.” 

Listening to Dr. Sell is fascinating because it’s the first time I’ve been challenged to think outside the box of immune systems and germs – and consider how my body is actually always trying to help and heal me, rather than hinder me. (Even if, at times, it feels like the latter.)

“The Germ Theory model is incomplete because it looks at the microbes out of context,” Dr. Sell tells me. “It finds a microbe at a location where there is inflammation and erroneously assumes the microbe caused the inflammation. GNM explains how microbes are a part of nature and work in harmony with the body rather than in opposition to it.”

This all pushes me to question how much of my chronic ailments are actually a part of connecting the dots of all the traumas I’ve been through, rather than a reflection of my own immune system and “microscopic battle against nature” (as Dr. Sell puts it). 

Regardless of what any of us agree or disagree on, seeing microbes as friends rather than foes has got to be a positive. I’m now questioning whether we all have varying immune systems or merely different blueprints of the traumas we’ve held on to or not. 

Every symptom and condition can be traced back to a conflict shock that our biology adapted to on our behalf.

“Every symptom and condition can be traced back to a conflict shock that our biology adapted to on our behalf,” Newberry and Puccioni add in. “These special biological programs happening within all of us have a two phase pattern: 1) the conflict active phase (when the conflict shock is happening, the brain sends signals to appropriate tissues to adapt in order to better assist us with the problem) and 2) the healing phase (the conflict is resolved and our body restores the adapted organs/tissues back to their original state/homeostasis). It's in the healing phase that we experience the majority of symptoms that conventional and holistic medicine labels as 'sickness' or 'disease.' If we can embrace that the symptoms are actually proof of healing, this can liberate us from the fear and confusion, not to mention all the secondary conflict shocks that arise from fear-provoking diagnoses and prognoses.” 

Newberry and Puccioni give a tangible example: “When a person is feeling attacked, the skin builds up additional layers of skin to ‘protect’ you from future attacks. This could show up if you have a heated argument with your partner, for example. After you make up and resolve whatever the argument was about, you enter the healing phase, and this results in what we know as acne.” 

Being a symptom detective has me asking myself, what could the conflict have been in my life that’s producing my mystery ailments? When did it happen? What was going on in my life at that time? All while trying to find a way to resolve it, whether that’s in the form of thinking differently, changing my perception, or reducing my stress.

GNM’s Definition of a Toxin 

“In order for something to be considered a true toxin, it must affect everyone equally – with no exceptions,” Newberry and Puccioni say. “So, if 10 people of the same weight drank a bottle of rat poison, everyone should have a very similar result. With other so-called ‘toxins,’ such as EMFs, black mold, or glyphosate, the problem is that you have two people that weigh the same amount and have the same levels of exposure and one will have symptoms, while the other will have no symptoms at all. In this case, the so-called ‘toxin’ is not the root cause of the symptoms.”

The two went on to pad this out for me, concluding that while avoiding exposure to certain substances may be good for supporting our overall health and resiliency, said substances are not the direct cause of symptoms – and it's actually the fear of [insert toxin here] that could have the more negative impact on us. 

It’s always going to be more about your relationship to the perceived toxin than the thing itself.

“It’s always going to be more about your relationship to the perceived toxin than the thing itself. If someone has a symptom after being exposed to a certain food etc., then it’s usually what we call a ‘track’ (a subconscious reminder of the initial conflict shock).” 

This makes a lot of sense to me as I see how the mainstream medical industry (note the word industry) and holistic wellness market profit from a currency of fear, including food fear. “This is how we are convinced to outsource our freedom to live in a state of victimhood, refusing to take responsibility for our own health!” exclaims Heatly. “It's a lot easier to just take a pill than it is to confront what's not working in our lives. When we outsource our health to the 'professionals,' we are giving away our power. We are affirming that a stranger knows us better than the thousands of years of wisdom sitting in our tissues. GNM is the ultimate invitation back to yourself. It's the story your symptom is begging you to acknowledge.” 

Closing Thoughts

While this may all sound a little complex, jargony, or woo-woo at first, the deeper I dive into it and see the stats and stories, the more convinced I am. I’d recommend listening to the Stories from German New Medicine podcast too for IRL anecdotes. 

Understanding symptoms as a reflection of my inner reality has made me realize that my body isn’t malfunctioning, it’s adapting for a specific, biological purpose. While that may sound relieving, taking full control and responsibility for my own health is challenging, but it’s a journey I’m looking forward to taking more steps into. 

It’s worth noting that what constitutes a “conflict” will differ from person to person as these experiences are deeply subjective. And there are three exceptions to symptoms that are not defined as being caused by a “conflict shock”: bodily injury/accident, severe malnutrition, and poisoning. This is where medicine and emergency treatment are especially honored in GNM.

“We often complicate and worsen things when we seek outside interventions that interrupt the body’s natural repair process – or when we experience a secondary conflict shock based on fear, worry, or self-devaluation about the symptom itself,” say Newberry and Puccioni. “The goal is to use outside interventions/modalities in a way that is based in peace over fear, using our personal freedom and responsibility to choose what feels best for us at any given time.”

All three experts challenged me personally to think about what our world and healthcare system would look like without all the fear-mongering – and I’ll be honest in saying that I almost can’t imagine it. But I know one thing: managing to remove fear from my own life, while seeing so-called “symptoms” as my body doing its healing thing, will undoubtedly be a life-changing tool for me. 

Follow Annie Heatly for more GNM and parenting experiences and Freedom From Fear podcast hosts Ashlee Newberry and Abigail Puccioni for further explanations of GNM. You can find Dr. Melissa Sell here.

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