Category: Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback in the mental health disciplines

Someone just drew our attention to the position taken by the American Academy of Pediatrics on certain alternative approaches to ADHD. (http://www.aap.org/pubed/ZZZXL1ITXSC.htm?&sub_cat=18)
We quote from the website:
“The following methods have not been proven to work in scientific studies:

  • Optometric vision training (asserts that faulty eye movement and sensitivities cause the behavior problems)
  • Megavitamins and mineral supplements
  • Anti-motion-sickness medication (to treat the inner ear)
  • Treatment for candida yeast infection
  • EEG biofeedback (training to increase brain-wave activity)
  • Applied kinesiology (realigning bones in the skull)”

Now most of us with long-term experience with ADHD are aware that all of the listed techniques are quite clearly effective in some children. Developmental vision training can be so helpful to a child that ADHD symptoms subside. Many mental health conditions, including ADHD, are known to respond profoundly in specific instances to megavitamin, mineral, and Omega 3 fatty-acid supplementation, or to detox in the case of the heavy metals. For years various practitioners have challenged the vestibular system with subtle, gentle, sustained movement in order to effect improved cortical regulation; it would not be entirely surprising if the administration of anti-motion-sickness pills to that same subset of kids might be helpful in achieving the same ends. Children with florid candida overgrowth may well exhibit depressive or under-arousal-type ADHD symptoms that subside once the condition is managed. And applied kinesiology may simply be mischaracterized (even by its proponents) as being about the realignment of bones in the skull. Kinesiology methods of adjustment may be just another pathway to reordering the brain’s regulatory function. Continue reading “Neurofeedback in the mental health disciplines”

Year-End Newsletter

At the office we received our Christmas present just a day or two after Christmas. It was the arrival from our Swiss development partners of a new amplifier, with built in impedance checking, for EEG and peripheral measures. It was immediately placed into operation in our office. Peripheral measures to follow. EEG Support has been offering the impedance meter for those already equipped with amplifiers. Many people thought it pricey, not realizing perhaps that it required even more complexity than is normally furnished in EEG amps. For new purchasers, the combination of impedance checking and EEG amplification makes for a more attractive overall package.

The first operational interface is with the BioExplorer software, which already runs the new games, InnerTube and Particle Editor. The next interface will hopefully be with the BrainMaster software, which now also runs the new games. This would be in line with existing trends within the field toward increasing inter-compatibility and the emergence of specialized development niches. BioExplorer currently interfaces with a variety of hardware. NeuroCarePro interfaces with Thought Tech’s Procomp and the Nexis. NeuroCyberbenetics has utilized the Thought Tech amp for many years, and before that Biofeedback Systems. Continue reading “Year-End Newsletter”

Neurofeedback and the Professions

The current newsletter is a continuation of a thought process initiated with the previous one. What is the pathway by means of which neurofeedback can enter the professions without unleashing a variety of turf wars among the varied mental health disciplines, and while respecting the rights of the public? I proceed into this discussion in the firm belief that neurofeedback cannot succeed except through professional tutelage, sponsorship, and management. It cannot, for example, succeed simply as a grassroots movement among end users or, to push the metaphor, as a prairie fire through a public suddenly sensitized to its need for neurofeedback and apprised of the benefits thereof.

The second proposition is that whoever controls the instrumentation controls the field; so in order to prevent a scrimmage around the issue of who controls neurofeedback, both the technique and the instrumentation must be made part of the commons of mankind. No football, no scrimmage. That in turn means that the professions must distinguish themselves by virtue of added value, incremental competence, and integrative perspective, not because they control access to the technology. There will be objections to this on the basis of the claim that only the licensed professions can be counted upon to act in the public interest, and to protect that interest. It will be my disagreeable burden to point out that the professions do not have a history of doing any such thing, and give no sign of doing so now. Continue reading “Neurofeedback and the Professions”

The Scientific Appraisal of Psychotherapy…and of Neurofeedback

The November 5 issue of Science News features an article by one of the regular contributors, Bruce Bower, on the encroachment of the Evidence-based Medicine juggernaut onto psychotherapy and its practitioners. The impetus was a policy statement on the subject issued by the American Psychological Association back in August. Despite the finality of a pronouncement of policy, the issue seems far from being put to rest. There does not appear to be much unanimity even within the committee of the APA which propounded the document about how such research on efficacy of psychotherapy should proceed, and whether weight should be given to clinical judgment along with more quantifiable scientific findings. Basic disagreements about the operative models survive: “Do treatments cure diseases, or do relationships heal people?” asks John Norcross, a member of the committee.

When it comes to testability for efficacy, neurofeedback would certainly seem to be in a favored position with respect to psychotherapy, for example. Why should we not relish this extraordinary opportunity to put some daylight between our methods and those that are less easily reducible to a procedure? It’s the arbiters of reimbursement who are pushing these standards, and if we meet them, do we not win? Perhaps. But then why is the hair on the back of my neck standing up in anticipation of such a win? Isn’t the problem that acceptance of neurofeedback on these terms would mean a kind of domestication that would rob it of its wild and boundary-breaking essence? Neurofeedback does not fit well in the above dichotomy: It is neither a treatment that cures disease, nor is it a mere appendage to talk therapy. Continue reading “The Scientific Appraisal of Psychotherapy…and of Neurofeedback”

A Profession of Neurofeedback?

Last year Tom Allen wrote a newsletter for us on the issue of a licensed profession around the emerging field of applied psychophysiology. We have decided to take up this issue at the meeting of the Allied Professionals
Section of the AAPB, and Tom Allen will be there to help lead the discussion.

I am personally agnostic on this issue, and just want to see happen what will be best for the progress of the field. In reviewing historical material for the preparation of our Alpha/Theta web-course I came to realize what deep roots this issue has. Even 100 years ago Hans Berger confronted the same issue. In deciding on his professional course he judged that the emerging field of neurology did not sufficiently take the mind and behavior into account, whereas the emerging field of psychiatry did not concern itself sufficiently with the data of experimental science with respect to the nervous system. Freud had made a similar judgment with regard to neurology, namely that it was simply not ready to tackle the issues that most interested him, but then he, Jung, and Adler left the brain completely out of the discussion. The legacy of this decision has carried forward to this day, causing fellow-traveler Daniel Amen to lament that ~psychiatry is the only branch of medicine that does not look at the organ it treats.~ Neurology, on the other hand, has migrated even more toward dealing with the piece parts of the nervous system and their ills, and thus the journals take them even farther from the domain of behavior and of functional medicine. Continue reading “A Profession of Neurofeedback?”

20 years with Neurofeedback

Although I mentioned it last week, it is worthy of more reflection that March 5 was the twentieth anniversary of our son Brian’s first neurofeedback training session. Within a little more than a month thereafter, Sue and I had decided to contribute somehow to the development of this field. This happened not firstly because of Brian’s progress in the interim–the good news on that front were largely yet to come–but all of the other things we saw happening in Margaret Ayers’ office while we were waiting for Brian to finish his sessions. Here was a veritable breeding ground for enthusiasm about brain-training. No controlled studies needed. In Michael Tansey’s imagery, we were seeing crutches getting hung up on walls, figuratively speaking.

I continue to mention Brian’s history in our introductory training course, but I observe that the story changes over time as we continue to reflect on it, as our own understanding of neurofeedback deepens, and as we understand better the challenges that Brian was facing with his own brain. A continuing preoccupation on our part concerns the “worldview” that Brian was developing with regard to himself and to his relationship to the world, and how this changed over time. Continue reading “20 years with Neurofeedback”