Hello my ACEsconnection friends! There was a fantastic lineup of guests last week on Dr. Greg WIlliams show, Breaking The Silence where the discussion centered around how neurofeedback is making a profound difference in healing the various physical, emotional and nervous system challenges of childhood trauma and PTSD.
Be sure to listen to the recording of the radio show with this link!
Given that trauma expert & pioneer Bessell van der Kolk, MD has touted neurofeedback as one of, if not the most effective treatment for healing childhood trauma and PTSD at its roots, the brain and nervous system, this is a show you do not want to miss!
On this show Dr. Greg Williams (a trauma survivor himself) interviewed neurofeedback pioneer, & Brain-Trainer International Founder, Peter Van Deusen, as well as neurofeedback practitioners: Stacey Breitmann, Dr. Sharrie Hanley & Mary Giuliani who shared their stories about how neurofeedback has made a profound difference in their lives and the lives of their clients.
What Is Neurofeedback? Just like your brain automatically helped you figure out how to stop wobbling and stay balanced to be able to learn how to ride a bike, neurofeedback helps trauma survivors train their brains to figure out how to shift from chronic, stressful, trauma response states, to more overall calm, focused & healthy states. This shift trickles down to changes in mood, behavior, relationships, self image, and more.
As children most of us remember the day when we first tried to ride a bike without our training wheels. We typically wobbled a lot, and fell down a few times, but eventually after a few tries we figured out (actually our brain figured out) how to stay balanced to keep us upright and riding without falling down.
We couldn’t have learned how to ride a bike from reading a book, or listening to someone telling us how to do it. Yes, we probably had an encouraging parent or sibling telling us to keep going, but learning how to actually balance and stay upright was only accomplished by our brain having the experience of doing it. This is due to our brains being able to change and re-wire, which is known as neuroplasticity. This is what makes neurofeedback possible in being able to re-wire a brain to more healthy functioning.
While learning to ride a bike our brain needed the trial and error feedback of us wobbling to be able to figure out how to eventually balance to keep ourselves up. Therefore, staying balanced was accomplished by our brain’s (not our mind's) inherent ability to figure it out by the feedback of doing it over and over again until it got it right. Once a brain has figured out how to adapt to a situation it wires itself accordingly and it then becomes a habitual state.
This is exactly the same principle operating with neurofeedback. In neurofeedback a person receives auditory and/or visual feedback when brain states are reached that are consistent with a normal (non-traumatized) calm, focused & flexible brain. Just as with learning to ride a bike, our brain naturally and automatically learns from it. When we train our brain over and over again with consistent neurofeedback the brain will reset itself to operate in this new calm, focused, flexible way vs. in a stressful, dysregulated and traumatized way.
To learn more about how neurofeedback can help your family members or your clients: Be sure to listen to the recording of the radio show with this link!
For more information on using neurofeedback at home or with clients to help improve or resolve issues related to childhood trauma, ptsd, sleep, mood, anxiety, depression, adhd & addictions email: info@brain-trainer.com, or visit: https://brain-trainer.com
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