Author: Siegfried Othmer

Since 1987 Siegfried Othmer has been engaged in research and development of clinical applications of EEG biofeedback. Currently he is Chief Scientist at the EEG Institute in Woodland Hills, CA. From 1987 to 2000 he was President of EEG Spectrum, and until 2002 served as Chief Scientist of EEG Spectrum International. Dr. Othmer provides training for professionals in EEG biofeedback, and presents research findings in professional forums. He has been involved continuously in the development of computerized instrumentation to provide EEG biofeedback training since 1985.

Report on the 35th AAPB Meeting, Colorado Springs, CO

This was the second year in which I presented an all-day seminar on our approach to neurofeedback. The audience grew this year to fill the room, and many others apparently picked up the handout. I presented a lot of theory, but most were waiting for the goods on how we actually do things, which I saved until the end and covered only cursorily. Sue and I are somewhat ambivalent about putting the material out there in this fashion, since the use of the inter-hemispheric protocol is a two-edged sword. The one-day seminar is supposed to be the “appetizer” for the clinical course, but most will probably just take the material I presented and run with it.

My other major pre-occupation at the conference was our Symposium on Migraine. This was preceded the day before by another such symposium, where the emphasis was on conventional biofeedback therapies and pharmacology for migraine. Deb Stokes was attending the AAPB Conference for the first time and was shocked that this conference would be a vehicle for such a preoccupation with drug treatment. The title of the Symposium was “New Frontiers in Migraine Headache,” and appeared to offer nothing new at all. That symposium was led by the incoming president of the AAPB, Steve Baskin. I have talked with him over the years about our migraine work, and never was able to make an impression. Over most of that time, he was of course still tethered to the vascular model of migraines. Over the last few years he has also been drawn into pharmacological studies, and when you get paid $3000 per patient for a drug study, it’s hard to make room for biofeedback. One could even say that his professional well-being is more dependent on drug company success than biofeedback success. Continue reading “Report on the 35th AAPB Meeting, Colorado Springs, CO”

Lindamood Bell Conference

This year the 12th annual Lindamood-Bell Conference overlapped with our Woodland Hills training course, but nevertheless I was able to take in two days of the conference in Anaheim at the invitation of Pat Lindamood. Some years ago we visited the Lindamood-Bell operation in San Luis Obispo, and we found considerable openness to our view of the world, even though our respective methods of remediation are worlds apart. Since that time there have been a number of cross-referrals. The Lindamood-Bell program focuses on reading disorders specifically. This is another field dominated by strongly held opinions that often go well beyond what solid research can support.

Pat Lindamood and Nanci Bell stepped onto this terrain many years ago with a targeted, intensive approach to training specific aspects of the reading process. Initially, they were driven by empirical findings of success. More recently, research has begun to backfill with supporting models. By now the Lindamood-Bell program is well-established nationally, and their conference attracts nationally known researchers. Continue reading “Lindamood Bell Conference”

Winter Brain Newsletter

A quick report on the just-concluded Winter Brain Conference, while memories are still fresh. On this occasion, we offered a two-day Advanced Training Course before the conference, as a convenience to those wanting to conserve on travel costs. But it does add significantly to what is already a long conference, a burden on the attendees and on us. We will probably not do this again. Rae Tattenbaum also offered a two-day course on her Peak Performance program, which was the best attended of the pre-conference courses. A course on QEEG-based training by Jay Gunkelman and Richard Soutar, on the other hand, hardly had more students than faculty. That may be a sign of the times with regard to QEEG-based training, as well as a reflection on who comes to the Winter Brain Conference. Or people are just balking at too long a conference.

On the Foundations Day, Rob kicked off the marathon with a historical review, and I started the technical discussions with 40 minutes of a firehose of data and models. The attendees were in for a long day…. The next day we were on a two-track schedule–left hemisphere on Track A to the left; right hemisphere on Track B to the right, where the Winter Brain Conference shared floor-time with the StoryCon. The audience voted with its feet, sloshing collectively between the two venues. The liveliest action, however, built up in the exhibit area, with increasing crescendo that even intruded upon the lecture halls. Continue reading “Winter Brain Newsletter”

Synergy

The most appropriate theme for the new-year newsletter is probably “synergy,” as we have seen the beginnings of a multiplier effect in which niche products potentiate other product developments, and developments in one domain of biofeedback reinforce those in another. The products at the heart of these developments might be termed “keystone” products. None fit the bill as much as the emerging BioExplorer software. It supports the ROSHI II+ as well as the Pocket Neurobics. In the future, it may also support the J&J C2. The BioExplorer is still largely a developer’s tool at this point, but it is in the process of becoming a versatile software option.

Another kind of synergy is illustrated by the C-2 itself, in that it supports not only EEG and peripheral feedback but Len Ochs’ LENS system and Peter Litchfield’s CO2-monitoring system. A similar situation prevails for the Pocket Neurobics, in that it supports HEG as well as conventional neurofeedback (either autonomously or through the BioExplorer). Continue reading “Synergy”

Biofeedback Society of California Conference, 2003

The BSC had its largest meeting in seven years November 5-8 in Irvine. This is particularly welcome news because normally it is the Northern California venues—in alternate years—that draw the largest participation. A good spirit prevailed.

I gave a short course on developing a general theory of self-regulation. This theme was also reflected in my talk at a panel discussion, in which I addressed the spectrum theory of ADHD and Autism. In the short course I talked about the increasing overlap between peripheral biofeedback and neurofeedback. For purposes of this discussion, I lumped HEG in the peripheral category rather than the neurofeedback bin. Both Hershel Toomim and Jeff Carmen like to have HEG to be taken as neurofeedback modalities. This sentiment is probably not shared by most people coming from the biofeedback side, and it doesn’t fit my world view either. To my mind, neurofeedback has to engage with the timing and frequency basis of brain organization, i.e. directly with synaptic events. Continue reading “Biofeedback Society of California Conference, 2003”

Report on ISNR

I left the ISNR Conference with my head full of rich detail, but over time it is easier to discern the deeper trends. First of all, the conference was anchored by some top mainstream scientists who have seriously bitten into neurofeedback. They are now very committed to this field, and they will carry on through their publications and graduate students, and through presentations at other conferences. They will be bringing up the rear with sound research. There were also first-rate presentations by the indigenous leaders of our field. And new capabilities are being developed on the instrumentation side. Quite unambiguously the forefront of this field is still in the hands of the scientist/practitioners, the clinicians, and the engineers.

On the matter of stimulation
Perhaps the development of greatest import at this time is the maturation that we see in the area of the stimulation technologies. I have been watching that development with intense interest over the years, but there was always a serious philosophical barrier. There was this conceptual divide between active training and passive driving, and we have always preferred to stay on the training side of that divide. This calls upon the active involvement of the client or patient in the work being done. It involves a learning component. We can say unabashedly that we are not doing anything to the brain. This is all very comforting, both to the clinician and the client, and it keeps the technique more unambiguously in the domain of psychology. Continue reading “Report on ISNR”