The Neurofeedback Solution: How to Treat Autism, ADHD, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Stroke, PTSD, and More

424 Pages·2012·0.58 MB·English

by  Stephen Larsen

This book is dedicated to three of the great pioneers and innovators—whose lives
spanned the twentieth century and who lived into the twenty-first—who have made our
field possible:
Elmer Green, who first hooked up yogis and explored the boundaries of science and mysticism.
Joe Kamiya, who discovered brain wave discernment and thus empowered a new discipline for
Psychology.
Hershel Toomim (right), who invented machines, both practical and healing, to bring new dimensions to
biofeedback therapy.
T N S
HE EUROFEEDBACK OLUTION
“Clearly written and exciting in scope. The contributors assembled here represent the
‘who’s who’ in research-based neurofeedback. They pioneered the use of sophisticated
technology and developed effective protocols to treat a variety of disorders.”
LES FEHMI, PH.D., DIRECTOR OF THE PRINCETON BIOFEEDBACK CENTRE, DEVELOPER OF OPEN
FOCUS TRAINING, AND AUTHOR OF THE OPEN-FOCUS BRAIN
“This book comes close to having it all: the past, present, and future of neurofeedback
and neuroplasticity; the theories; and the stories of real people who, using
neurofeedback and related technologies, discover and rediscover their true humanity
and higher functioning. Here is the humanity with the technologies, and the
technologies with the humanity.”
LEN OCHS, PH.D., FOUNDER OF OCHSLABS AND THE LENS TECHNIQUE
“The brain can do far more for itself than drugs or other invasions, and the possibilities
and realities are brought forth herein. The wisdom to self-regulate is contained in every
brain. Larsen introduces a host of pioneers who are forging the future in this important
emerging discipline.”
THOMAS COLLURA, PH.D., BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER, NEUROPHYSIOLOGIST, AND FOUNDER AND
PRESIDENT OF BRAINMASTER TECHNOLOGIES
“Stephen Larsen has done an amazing job of pulling together state-of-the-art
neurofeedback treatments into an easy-to-read book that will be useful to experts in the
field as well as the general public. Those already doing neurofeedback as well as those
with no background at all can learn from this book.”
JEFFREY A. CARMEN, PH.D., LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST AND CREATOR OF THE EZPIR HEG
NEUROFEEDBACK SYSTEM
CONTENTS
Cover Image
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword
• By Nancy White, Ph.D., and Leonard Richards, Th.D.
Introduction
Why Another Book on Neurofeedback?
Chapter 1: What Is Neurofeedback?
The Helpful Little Robot
The Existence of Brain Waves
Surfing the Waves
Gruzelier’s Heavenly Musicians
Morphogenesis and Neurofeedback
Infra-Low Frequencies, or ILF, HEG, and Z-Score Training
Chapter 2: The Changing Brain
Neuroplasticity and the Paradigm Shift
The Death of the Old Paradigm
The No-New-Neurons Orthodoxy
Proving Neural Plasticity
Eric Kandel Loves Snails (in a Different Way Than the Rest of Us)
Neural Plasticity Everywhere: The Plot Thickens
Learning Neurogenesis from Prozac
Could Neurofeedback Affect Neural Plasticity?
Illusionist Magic: Neurofeedback That Doesn’t Look Like Neurofeedback
Chapter 3: The Evolution of Neurofeedback
Brain Mapping and Scope of Treatment
• With Joel Lubar, Ph.D., BCIA-EEG
Mapping the Brain
The Modern qEEG Is Born
Why Is qEEG Reliable, or Valid?
The Neurofeedback Museum and Hall of Fame at the BrainMaster Home Office,
Bedford, Ohio
Dr. Lubar’s Involvement with Neurofeedback
Conditions That May Benefit from Neurofeedback
Chapter 4: The Compassionate Healer
Or, How Does a Person Become a Neurofeedback Provider?
• With Nicholas Dogris, Ph.D., Mike Beasley, L.M.T., and Richard M. Smith, Ph.D.
The Healing Gate
Chapter 5: The Adopted Child
Attachment Disorder and the Compromised Brain
• With Sebern Fisher, M.A., M.S.W., L.M.H., BCIA
Our First Experience of Feedback
The Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) Child
Neurofeedback for RAD—Sebern Fisher, M.A., M.S.W., L.M.h., BCIA
Chapter 6: Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome
• With Mary Lee Esty, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., and Donald Magder, M.A.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Treating Autistics at Stone Mountain
Chapter 7: Attention Deficit Disorder and Its Cousins
• With J. Lawrence Thomas, Ph.D.
Attentional Deficits and Motivation in Children (and Adults)
The Theta/Beta Ratio
Neurofeedback for ADD
Chapter 8: The Wonderful World of Anxiety
• With Paul Botticelli, L.C.S.W.
Anxiety and Stress
The Human Stress Response
Anxiety Central
Anxiety-Driven Depression
Does Anxiety Have a Shape?
Chapter 9: Neurofeedback Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• D. Corydon Hammond, Ph.D., ECNS, QEEG, BCIA-EEG
The Nature and Symptoms of OCD
Pharmaceutical Treatments for OCD
Other Psychiatric Treatments
Behavior Therapy Treatment
Neurofeedback Treatment of OCD
Several Cases of OCD Treated with LENS
Chapter 10: Traumatic Brain Injury
• With Harris McCarter, Ph.D., Michele Luster,
Mary Lee Esty, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., and D. Corydon
Hammond, Ph.D., ECNS, QEEG, BCIA-EEG
Head Injuries from the Mild to the Severe
Chapter 11: Head Games
Sports Injuries and Brain Trauma
• With Elsa Baehr, Ph.D., and Lynn Brayton, Psy.D.
The Sports Concussion Crisis
Treating Athletic Injuries at Stone Mountain Center
Neurofeedback Treatment of a Forty-Year-Old Man with Multiple Head Injuries
The LENS and Sports Enhancement
Chapter 12: Stroke Family
• With Barbara Dean Schacker, M.A.,
Victor Zelek, Ph.D., and
Mary Lee Esty, Ph.D., L.C.S.W.
Chapter 13: New Directions in Neurofeedback
• With Hershel Toomim, Ph.D., Jeffrey Carmen, Ph.D.,
Henry Mann, M.D., Nicholas Dogris, Ph.D., BCIA-EEG,
Victor McGregor, Ph.D., A.N.P., N.P.P.,
Mark Smith, L.C.S.W., QEEG, Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D.,
Martin Wuttke, C.N.P., Michael Gismondi, M.A., L.M.H.C., and Thomas Collura, Ph.D.
Hemoencephalography
Dr. Henry “Hank” Mann on HEG and Neurofield
Neurofield—Nicholas Dogris, Ph.D.
The Evolution of Z-Score Training
Background: The NeuroGuide Database and Robert Thatcher
Mark Smith Finds a Solution for His Son’s Epilepsy: The Evolution of Z-Score
Training
Slow Cortical Potentials and Infra-Low Frequencies
Infra-Low-Frequency Neurofeedback (ILF)
The Othmer Approach to ILF, with a Focus on PTSD
Mark Smith’s Approach to ILF
Z-Scored LORETA (Low-Resolution EEG-based Tomography) Neurofeedback
The BrainAvatar System
Conclusions
Chapter 14: Consciousness
A Neurofeedback Perspective
• With Jay Gunkelman, QEEG, and
Juan Acosta-Urquidi, Ph.D., QEEG-T
The Salience and Default-Mode Networks
The Deep Grottoes of the Brain: The Insula and the Cingulate Gyrus
Consciousness and the EEG
Increased EEG Alpha Spectral Power During Energy Healing
Brain Waves and Heart Waves: Psychophysiological Studies of Healers, Mystics, and
Shamans
Neurofeedback, Subtle Energy, and Mindfulness Disciplines
Epilogue
Changing the World, Neuron by Neuron
Resources
Glossary of Neurofeedback Terms and Acronyms
Footnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors
About the Author
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Books of Related Interest by Inner Traditions
Copyright & Permissions
FOREWORD
Nancy White, Ph.D., and Leonard Richards, Th.D.
I
n his second book about neurofeedback, Stephen Larsen takes us further into the
fascinating odyssey of this promising field: its birth, its adolescence, and now the
dawn of its emergence into a mature treatment modality. The story the author tells us
here is far from the final chapter in this rapidly developing discipline, and his current
work chronicles significant aspects of neurofeedback’s grown-up life: what it has
become and what it can do today. Attention is duly given to the knowledge,
understanding, and inventiveness that current practitioners have gained by “going to
school” for a generation, under the tutelage of the field’s original researchers—to whom
this book is dedicated. Like Dad finally giving us the keys to our own car, today’s
practitioners are taking the results of their mentors’ toil and driving more skillfully and
safely into the future.
Important research findings in neural science regarding the physiology and
functioning of our brains corroborate and support the findings of neurofeedback
researchers—conducted for the most part without the extravagant funding available for
more conventional projects—to provide an evidence-basis that gives the field greater
acceptance than ever before. Stephen Larsen chronicles some of these developments,
devoting an entire chapter (chapter 2) to the mainstream neuroscientific underpinnings
of neurofeedback.
This field didn’t always have the level of acceptance it does today. I (Nancy White)
was one of the first professionals who brought neurofeedback from research into daily
clinical practice; this began in the 1970s. Back then, many in the medical establishment
treated neurofeedback with disdain, if not outright derision. On more than one occasion
a parent reported to us that her child’s pediatrician told her not to bother with
neurofeedback because she was “wasting her money.” They found otherwise when they
proceeded with neurofeedback therapy and their children improved markedly. At the
end of an interview we gave to Houston’s business newspaper in the mid-1990s, a well-
known local psychiatrist was asked to comment; he laid waste to the entire article with
his own relatively uninformed negativity. But today an entire section of his practice is
devoted to neurofeedback.
On another occasion in the early 1990s we attended a dinner party in the elegant
gardens of a friend’s home. At our table sat a much older couple; the man introduced
himself as a neurologist who remembered Houston’s venerable Medical Center “when it
was a corn field.” At some point in the conversation he turned to me and asked, “And
what is it you do, my dear?” I replied that we trained people’s brains to improve neural