nofearneurofeedback-blog

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Great article about a recent study...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/under-the-skin-how-childh_b_4950530.html Great article about a recent study. I'm surprised it doesn't mention the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study from 1995-1997, upon which this research appears to build.  From the CDC.gov website: "It is critical to understand how some of the worst health and social problems in our nation can arise as a consequence of adverse childhood experiences. Realizing these connections is likely to improve efforts towards prevention and recovery.” http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/ The ACE study provides an understanding of the wide ranging effects of developmental trauma and suggests the need for new approaches to treating it, such as Neurofeedback. Understanding that early childhood adversity shapes the wiring of the brain suggests the use of Neurofeedback to re-train the brain to reverse the effects of trauma.

#sebern fisher #bessel van der kolk #ace study #trauma #abuse #cdc.gov #medical study #neurofeedback #social problems #children

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Little Kids on Big Drugs

While reading Alan Schwarz's November 14th New York Times article, "One Drug or Two? Parents See Risk But Also Hope", I suffered alongside the young mother, Joelle Kendle, who must make the miserable decision of whether or not to put her young child on a little-tested second drug, Risperdal, to accompany his Adderall in the management of his severe oppositional defiance, ADHD, and mood swings.

So many parents go through this now and it upsets me because I grew up in a household with a therapist mother who offers Neurofeedback to exactly this sort of youngster and the research resoundingly shows that brainwave training is an effective, non-medication route for kids and parents just like Matthias and Ms. Kendle.

Because anti-psychotics and SSRIs gained popularity in the 1970s, with Prozac taking the stage in 1988, pharmaceutical companies blossomed and patents rolled in. There was suddenly so much money to be made on shaping and re-shaping the soup of our brains, our neurotransmitters, that brain electricity came to be ignored by the mainstream, just when EEG and sleep research began to show the extraordinary power of our brain's electricity.

I see Matthias and his mother struggling as a direct result of this stifled research and curtailed publicity for Neurofeedback brainwave training. This little boy would greatly benefit from Neurofeedback. Articles like Mr. Schwarz's continue to roll off the press showing textbook cases for what are dubbed "alternative" treatments, but because Neurofeedback cannot be neatly patented like the drug cocktails Matthias will soon take, it isn't getting the research and mainstream attention that it should. The very fact that this treatment is called "alternative" is a result of pharmacology's massive dominance in the field. Patients now suffer because insurance companies don't look as kindly on "alternative" treatments.

As this article explains, this new generation faces a world in which it is relatively common to take two drugs in mysterious "guess and check" combinations with unknown long-term results. What a shame then that Neurofeedback does not have a larger audience as a safe, effective, brainwave-based therapy that alleviates developmental and severe behavior issues.

For parents and guardians out there like Ms. Kendle, who no doubt found Mr. Schwarz's article both alarming and hauntingly reflective of their own struggles, I'd like to recommend the following resources:

This brief video shows a boy that reminds me of Matthias and then tracks his experience with Neurofeedback. It shows him first at age 8, during the making of a documentary film on "untreatable" children. Then we see him at age twelve. He has changed and he and his mother reflect on how things used to be.

The new book, Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain: This book is filled with accounts of adult and adolescent patients who overcame severe developmental trauma and behavior issues using Neurofeedback and talk therapy as the primary modalities. Most of the author's patients were able, like Ken in the video, to wean themselves off of multiple medications. Norman Doidge, M.D. has written a book entitled The Brain That Changes Itself. Parents, and civilians who just happen to have an interest in the subject of neuroplasticity, may find this to be useful as well.

Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score chronicles his experience treating patients using numerous modalities, medication being just one of them.

All three authors seek to disprove the notion that the brain you get is the one you have for life. Neuroplasticity is a new theme in the field and a concept that flies in the face of our fixed and one track-minded national obsession with pharmacology.

The New York Times article comes closest to obliquely acknowledging Neurofeedback when Dr. Rubin describes the prescribing of multiple psychotropic drugs thusly: "We're pouring some water on the fire, and my concern is we're never going back to see why the fire got started." This is what brainwave training does. It goes to the root cause of the problem, which lies in the brain's electrical firing, and helps the patient's brain to rewire and heal itself.

Drugs upon drugs will change the soupy neurotransmitters that partially control our brains, but the wiring will remain damaged. My heart goes out to Matthias and his mom. I hope they find out about Neurofeedback and give it a try before he starts taking Risperdal in combination with Adderall for the next many upcoming formative years of his life. With Neurofeedback, Matthias could perhaps forego Risperdal and even titrate off the Adderall over time.

--Emma Tattenbaum-Fine

#norman doidge #Bessel van der Kolk #sebern fisher #emma tattenbaum-fine #risperdal #neurofeedback #SSRI #medication #depression #ADHD #behavior problems #school age kids #parents #doctors #adderral #adderal risk #adderrall

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Neurofeedback on Your Bookshelf: Two Great New Books

The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is now #12 on the NY Times list of bestselling science books.  It discusses the history of trauma treatment and the author’s personal evolution within it.  Van der Kolk has been looking for breakthroughs in the treatment of trauma, particularly in what he calls “developmental trauma”, for his entire career. 

A section of this comprehensive five-part book is dedicated to treatment paths for trauma survivors.  Among the several paths discussed are yoga and theater.  It is in this treatment section that van der Kolk explains Neurofeedback and its role in recovery from developmental trauma.  He takes the reader on a brief journey from his earliest engagement with EEG, aiding in a sleep laboratory at Boston State Hospital, to his later seminal conversations with colleague Sebern Fisher, another influencer in the small but especially vital field of developmental trauma and Neurofeedback.  

 Ms. Fisher had already begun to see extraordinary changes in her patients and gave van der Kolk the key opportunity to try out the modern equipment she was using as well as to interview three of her patients whose progress exemplified the potential of this (at the time) little used treatment.  Van der Kolk, building on his EEG knowledge from those early sleep studies, understood the tremendous possibility in this far more modern equipment and in the techniques that Fisher was using with her especially vulnerable patients.  

Sebern Fisher is author of Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain.  For those looking to educate themselves in the fields of trauma and brainwave training, this pair of books serves as a robust guide to what is new in the field as well as the research and the patient stories that bring us to our contemporary understanding of the brain and how it heals itself.  

Van der Kolk’s new book gives a comprehensive look at the ins and outs of trauma.  If you are particularly interested in how the brain learns to organize itself through Neurofeedback, you will find Fisher's Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain to be a gem in the field, and the only book of its exact kind. 

Developmental trauma itself is an epidemic: from victims of war to victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, its imprint is all over society.  These books help a new generation of patients and psychologists to fully understand trauma and its effects on the brain and body.

--by Emma Tattenbaum-Fine

#sebern fisher #neurofeedback #emma tattenbaum-fine #bessel van der kolk #the body keeps the score #book review #trauma #therapy #eeg