Please share any stories, insights, experiences or opinions you have about neurofeedback. Have you tried it? Do you know anyone who has? Have you tried to get it covered by insurance for yourself or a child? Many of us are curious about this for treating our own symptoms or for better supporting our kids but it sounds serious, complicated and expensive. What's your experience been? What have you heard or felt or tried? What do you think?
Sebern Fisher believes a “well-regulated brain” is a healthier and happier brain. Unfortunately, those of us with lots of ACEs are unlikely to have one.
Instead, we probably have what she calls a “fear-driven brain,” a concept central to her book Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain.
She explained how neurofeedback can he helpful.
With neurofeedback, she explained "we can help the brain learn its own regulation,” Fisher said, and when that happens “pathology drops, attachment is enhanced, mindfulness enhanced.”
In other words – more joy, less angst, and a better night’s sleep while also being able to have more connected relationships.
For her, getting brain regulated is the first order of business, because “a well-oiled brain” is going to function better.
However, a well-regulated mind and well-regulated brain are not one in the same. Fisher, who has been a long-time meditator, thinks efforts to change the brain using mindfulness alone can be time-consuming and often ineffective at getting and keeping the brain calm. It's not that she is against mindfulness practices, she isn't. She finds that they are far more beneficial after one has a calmed-down brain.
“We’re saying this to the brain – chill – not to the person. If the person could (chill), they wouldn’t do or need neurofeedback. The person can’t just chill and that’s the issue," she said.
So how does the brain learn to "chill" with neurofeedback?
Sensors are pasted to the scalp and connected to a computer. The computer measures brain frequencies which are adjusted with the help of the neurofeedback practitioner. The person doing neurofeedback has guidance from a person as well as a real-time EEG allowing “the brain’s owner” to have a mirror to watch their own brain.
A neurofeedback session isn't all computer technology and frequencies. An in-depth assessment is done prior to starting to clarify issues, symptoms, drug and health history - all which help the practitioner know where to start and which brain frequencies to target.
“It really is a mirror for the brain to be looking at its own activity," she said which allows a person to “see what their brain in producing.” The practitioner sees it as well and with what is basically a computer game "asks the brain" to make more of the frequency believed to be beneficial.
For developmental trauma, the focus is often on frequencies that allow for a quieting of fear.
“We know fear circuits are in the temporal lobe. Amygdala is in the right hemisphere. In developmental trauma part of brain overactive, disorganized, highly aroused," Fisher said. These are what impact affect regulation and can make life so difficult for those with development trauma.
Generally, those with developmental trauma, almost by definition, come in highly aroused, anxious, agitated and depressed, she said.
“It’s incumbent upon me to find the frequency for that brain that helps them feel less of all that,” she said, which is why a clinical assessment with conversation and history is done to get a person’s specific arousal history and for the “initial frequencies” to be figured out. It’s also why the person getting neurofeedback needs to report on symptoms and issues between sessions to figure out how effective the treatment is.
With neurofeedback, the brain is basically being asked to do three things Fisher explained.
- Inhibit excess slow wave
- Inhibit excess fast high wave
- Produce or “make” a targeted frequency
Here's a visual demonstration of neurofeedback.
The brain does these things via the use of computer games, with names such as Space Race. Fisher said the games aren’t really that fun or interesting, but what motivates people to play them is the “intrinsic reward of brain feeling better.” Essentially, it sounds like they keep playing because they like the results.
When it “works” a person will tell her they’ve felt calm, been sleeping more/better, is less reactive and are making easier eye contact, she said. Plus, Fisher says, the more objective measures are helpful and include things like sleep quality and length, nightmare frequency, bowel function and not twisting hair or biting nails, things that suggest a system regulating itself well behind the scenes.
I think of those of us with brain developmental trauma from ACEs as being like a car without working brakes, seatbelts and low on gas. This is not the most reliable car to take on a trip to the grocery store never mind a cross country trip but one makes due if that's the only one but the rides aren't always safe, smooth or enjoyable.
Fisher believes that calming a “fear-driven brain” through neurofeedback is a game changer for those with developmental trauma
A “different person arises out of a regulated brain,” she said but when she says different she doesn't mean a person becomes unrecognizable or less who they are. In fact, it's the opposite. A person changes, when not afraid, to someone more present, relaxed, rested and available.
I wonder if it's like how I feel after a yoga class when nothing in my actual life has changed but the whole world seems better. However, too often, these are short-lived states because my "default" setting quickly and easily reverts to feeling afraid. Apparently, this is not unusual for people who have been through a lot of adversity during development.
In fact, Fisher said, "People with developmental trauma become identified with what they feel. The brain has no real control over constant feelings that lead to all sorts of cognitions that aren’t positive.”
In other words, many of us blame ourselves for being afraid and how we act while afraid.
What’s empowering about learning about neurofeedback (even if one hasn't tried it) is understanding that fear isn’t a choice, a flaw, a personality trait or a defect. It’s evidence of trauma and what I think of as brain strain. Knowing there's a way to release a brain stuck in fear is exciting and shame-reducing.
Many of us have been labeled, diagnosed and treated as though who we are is faulty. It's almost a shock to hear a practitioner speak as though it is actually the symptoms that should be labeled, diagnosed or treated instead.
If I think of fear, anxiety or depression as the brain's responses to ACEs, similar to how I think of vomiting as a response to the stomach bug, there's much less stigma.
A childhood with no mother or regulating other is going to create "brains in a lot of trouble," she said. "Those brains (and their owners) need primary organization, building a competent right hemisphere" which she said is the goal of that population she treats and sees most.
The good news is the brain is plastic and neurofeedback, said Fisher, “works 90% of the time.”
The bad news is that neurofeedback is expensive and not always covered by insurance, which can be expensive.
Fisher hears this a lot and understands cost is a barrier. When possible, she suggested people think of taking care of the brain the way they think of dental work. “You’re going to do orthodontia for teeth. Do neurofeedback” saying also, “it’s your life.”
She's passionate about the effectiveness of neurofeedback because she has seen the difference it can make in others and has felt it for herself. Though neurofeedback is not the only treatment available for developmental trauma, Fisher believes it’s the best. Other things, medications, for example, can help “but don’t teach the brain to organize better. Once the medications are withdrawn, the brain goes back to how it was before their use, whereas, with neurofeedback, the brain is taught to regulate itself,” she said.
"Generally speaking, once people achieve capacity for self-regulation the brain is invested in regulation," she said.
It’s not that neurofeedback is a cure. While treatment isn't lifelong the brain can be impacted by things like Just like a virus and physical events like puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. In those cases, a short round of neurofeedback can get the brain back to optimal functioning if it reverts to an older default setting, she said.
I've got neurofeedback on my list of healing modalities to try.
But even if one can’t afford neurofeedback, it's heartening to know that just terror, fear, and anxiety are not necessary a life sentence.
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