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Examples of specific clinical cases using neurofeedback.
These clinical cases are not meant to be studies. If you want to read more about studies, click here. Cases give you more of a sense of the clinical impact, the impact on people's lives. Everyone professional using neurofeedback for more than a year probably has multiple studies. These cases are not unique - they really are typical stories of what you hear. Changing the brain can and does have a big impact on many lives.
Case notes : 50 year old LCSW (licensed social worker) with PTSD (example towards bottom of page - click here
Woman with Brain aneurysm 3 years prior to neurofeedback
In 1996, a woman came in with her husband. She was about 45 years old. She had very flat affect, and never smiled. Each time she came in, she had an extremely flat affect.
When she came in for the sixth session, she lit up and smiled and said, "This is saving my life."
We asked why? To that point, she had come in 5 times and trained for about 15 minutes per session (she tired after that).
She proceeded to explain that she had a brain aneurysm 3 years ago. Since then, her life had gone down hill. She said, "I could barely get up in the morning. I'd go sit on the couch all day because I couldn't think. I couldn't do chores. I couldn't talk to my friends." She said she used to love to read. But after the operation, when she'd try to read, she'd just go over a page 3 times. When she turned turn the page, she had no idea what she had read.
Then she said - "I just came back from the library. Last week, I read 3 books. And I picked up more. I'm able to read again. I also had conversations with my friends. I did chores. I just haven't been able to do those things."
Comment: It's hard to imagine such a short number of sessions creating such a profound change. But subtle changes in timing and activation in the brain can have profound implications to brain function. This is particularly true for brain's that are the most disregulated. That doesn't mean you see this level of change consistently. Often, it can take far longer. Also, this level of training - 5 sessions, isn't nearly enough training for anyone. It takes a lot of training for those changes to begin to stick.
Licensed Social Worker with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
A 50 year old LCSW had been an RN in Vietnam during the Vietnam war during the 60's. During that time, she reports while serving there, she had some traumatic events happen to her. As a result, when she returned to the US, every time she would smell damp earth, she would "freak out" or get panicky.
Once back in the US, she learned she had PTSD. She quickly enrolled in a university program to become a licensed social worker. While going through the program and for 20 years after, she sought out every kind of program for PTSD. None - and she says "she tried them all" worked to help resolve her extreme reactivity and flashbacks.
Ultimately she came across neurofeedback in the mid-90's. She decided to try it. Part of the process she tried is called Alpha-theta training. It's helped PTSD for Vietnam Vets in one study done by Eugene Peniston. Many clinicians use it routinely for PTSD with extremely good effect. I
Alpha-theta training helps you achieve a very quiet, deeper state of consciousness and maintain that over time through feedback (you get more beeps as you get deeper and deeper into state). . For many people, sustaining a deep state for a sustained period of time allows them to "observe" traumatic events in a quiet, deep state without the high stress normally associated with that image.
This woman reported that during the 10th or 11th alpha-theta session, she was in a very deep state. All of a sudden she was able to observe the events that had happened to her in Vietnam, but she was observing them at a distance - like she was floating above it all (this is also called the observer state). She said - there was no emotional charge going on while I was watching the events.
After that training session, she said things changed. She never again experienced the extreme response when she smelled damp earth, her "triggers" seem to have been removed. She said, "it's not that I lost the memory of the event. I can still picture it clearly if I think about it. But it just doesn't bother me like it did since I did the Alpha-theta training.
Many more cases will be coming, plus we'll provide you links to other places on the web that have good case write ups.
Still under construction