EEG INFO – Articles on Neurofeedback

It’s been a cold winter here in Los Angeles, and I see our rain keeps making the news. The rest of the US keeps setting records for cold weather as well. But spring is here, and we can’t wait to thaw out from a chilly winter. We’re also thawing out after three long years of a pandemic that put some of our favorite things, like this “regular newsletter,” on ice for a while. But, we’re still here in our big office and classroom in Los Angeles, the clinic is open again, there are new staff members to meet, some returning previous staff, a return to in-person learning in our classroom with breakfasts and coffee, a new director of education, a new lower frequency in the software, heartwarming accomplishments in the non-profit to tell you about, new publications, new videos to watch, and more.

Continue reading “April 2023 Newsletter”

Thank you for all the support we have received over the last month. We are so moved by all the letters, flowers, cards, emails, donations. Sue was deeply loved.

• The memorial will not be recorded or streamed. We look forward to seeing many of you in person although we wish it was under happier circumstances.
• Everyone is welcome to join us for a hike after the memorial, weather permitting.
• The hike will begin at 2:30pm in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve, Western end of Victory Blvd, Woodland Hills, CA. There is a $3 parking fee to park inside the lot and your payment helps support the park. You can also find parking on the street outside the lot.

Thank you so much. See you Saturday.

 

 

Continue reading “Sue Othmer’s Memorial: This Saturday, March 18, 2023”

S usan FitzGerald Othmer died on February 3rd after three years of declining mental health, two days after her 79th birthday. This was Sue’s 38th year of involvement with neurofeedback.

A lover of nature who became a neuroscientist in the observational, naturalistic tradition of Oliver Sacks, Sue Othmer was a mother of three children, a teacher and community organizer, a gifted therapist and clinician, and a pioneer in neuroscience. Her life is best understood through the impact she has had on those around her. Unflappable, calm in the face of hardship, Sue navigated life with an even keel, a happy disposition, a unique self-sufficiency—steadying and nurturing those around her.

Continue reading “On the Life and Mission of Sue Othmer: February 1, 1944 to February 3, 2023”

A dramatic case report has just been published on the extraordinarily quick recovery of a woman diagnosed with “severe and complex” PTSD and unspecified Dissociative Disorder. The author is trauma therapist Anna Gerge of Sweden, and the method was ten sessions of Infra-Low Frequency Neurofeedback, in combination with a single session of EMDR. Substantial resolution of PTSD symptoms and essentially complete resolution of dissociative events was achieved, and confirmed in four-month follow-up.

Continue reading “A Case of PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DIDNOS)”

This weighty book of 500 pages has just reached us, and the editors deserve our gratitude and appreciation. Their labor has been a service to the field: Jim Evans, Mary Blair Dellinger, and the late Harold Russell. No neurofeedback denier could read this book and remain resolute in his convictions. As it has evolved over the decades, the field is too diverse and multi-fold to have emerged out of mere imaginings into a grand delusion. This is not to deny, however, that grand delusions have also been a motive force. And the disagreements among us have always played a much greater role than whatever beliefs we shared.

Continue reading “Neurofeedback: The First Fifty Years”

Overview

Some academics still consider the placebo model of neurofeedback to be a hurdle to overcome. At this point I question whether to even take up this issue, because as far as we are concerned these people are beating a dead horse. It honors the question too greatly even to discuss it once again. The appearance of the paper last year titled “The Fallacy of Sham-Controlled Neurofeedback Trials 2018,” by Cannon, Pigott, and Trullinger shifts the balance of the argument because it rests on assumptions about neurofeedback that are themselves questionable. Taking up this topic then serves as a springboard to call the entire operant conditioning model of neurofeedback into question, and to propose the more inclusive model of associative learning. We navigate this labyrinth step by step.

Continue reading “Disposing of the Placebo Model of Neurofeedback, From Operant Conditioning to the Associative Learning Model”