Neurofeedback

Hi all, Thank you for sharing in my excitement. I really am feeling very good about this because another place I called the other week wanted to charge an obscene amount that was way beyond the reach of most people.

@CherryBomb Your post made me giggle. You know, neurofeedback is supposed to be able to help improve focus and concentration...just saying .

@Former-Member You can ask me questions, but I am by no means an expert. I was extremely skeptical about the whole neurofeedback thing when I first heard about it from someone about ten years ago. However, having tried it, I know it definitely DID something. I got dreams that I had never had before...and even though I only had a few sessions of neurofeedback, the dreams it produced helped immensely with one part of my muddle. Thus I am very hopeful that 12 sessions (with the option of doing another 12 each year under ATAPS if needed) might super help.

What they actually do is, they hook you up to a computer with electrodes attached to your scalp (which is way less weird than it sounds!!!!) and then you just sit there and play a computer game. The game might be something like floating bubbles, where you have to keep your brainwaves in a certain state in order to keep the bubbles in the air. If you start getting stressed or whatever, the change in your brainwaves makes the bubbles fall to the ground. Thus it is training you to get and keep your brainwaves in a certain state. I walked out of each session feeling absolutely no different...but then I started getting these dreams.

Neurofeedback is one of those things where they discovered it works...and now researchers are trying to figure out how and why it works - so sort-of back-to-front. I think it really started to be used for ADHD and then along the way they discovered that it also works for other things - complex trauma being one of them. I think because of this back-to-front sort of thing, it is still considered kind-of out there and not "evidence based." However, I truly believe that within twenty years or so, this sort of thing will be much more mainstream and people will laugh at the notion that we ever tried to use talk-based therapy to treat trauma.

@Former-Member sensorimotor psychotherapy is definitely another type of therapy that I think will become more mainstream over time. I don't know much about it at all, but I know it focuses on the bodily sensations associated with trauma rather than being a talk therapy. None of this sort of thing is really taught to psychology students at the moment - psychology seems to be currently stuck on CBT with mindfulness thrown in (thus producing third-wave cognitive therapies like ACT and DBT). However, I am encouraged by the fact that some forward thinking psychologists go out and educate themselves on these "alternative" techniques.

I have heard of neurofeedback and think it sounds fascinating! I'd love to try it to see what it's like and experience it for myself! I read that it rewires the brain much faster than talk therapy because you're instantaneously correcting things to do with your physical sensations.

let us know how it goes @Phoenix_Rising

Thank you @Phoenix_Rising that was an excellent summation and I really appreciate you took the time to respond. It sounds like it helped you. From what I am seeing on the net it is being used or was being used, primarily for PTSD sufferers. Of which I am one.

I am having great success with neuroplasticity too, but not by external impulses, purely thoughts to rewrite my pathways. It really is working, I am light years from where I was before I started doing it and have had two major shifts (with many little steps between those) that have lead me to this very healthy point I am now. I have suffered PTSD for close to 14 years and these changes have come about in the last 4 or 5 months because of what I am now doing.

I too do not want to live with it, I want it behind me. And I believe now I can get there, no... change that .. because ... I know I will get there.

So do what you need to, and I'm sure there are a lot of us in here very interested in your experience and progress. Congratulations for finding it and now having that avenue open that you thought was closed. That is great news! 😄

Fascinating @Phoenix_Rising and Good Luck. Congrats for getting approval under ATAP Yes new technology can be danged expensive ... and so therefore not readily available across the board.

I am an old girl and a bit techno averse .. but not a total Luddite.

It seems like a sophisticated version of the old biofeedback approaches .. and I knew a Psychology major and Physics Phd candidate very well .. one a husband ... and discussed these issues in light of the latest tech of the times in the late 1980-90s

Nueroscience has taken such a leap forward since then.

I appreciate your impatience with slow talking cure approaches ... and some of the assumptions behind them... treating trauma properly is important.

Was just involved in a conversation about brain plasticity on the Carer's forum .... so exciting they are making breakthroughs in trauma therapy ....

That's so great @Phoenix_Rising ..... ❣ Wow

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@Phoenix_Rising wrote:

@CherryBomb Your post made me giggle. You know, neurofeedback is supposed to be able to help improve focus and concentration...just saying .

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ROFL You make me laugh.