How many sessions will I need?
How frequently should I have sessions?
Do you guarantee success?
It’s expensive…
But the brain can’t grow new cells…
Is this some sort of New Age fad?
Isn’t this dangerous?
How many sessions will I need?
This depends very much on you and what you would like to address with neurofeedback. It helps to see neurofeedback sessions like visits to the gym. The longer you train a particular muscle group, the more strength, resilience and flexibility it gains. The first neurofeedback session is more like a warm-up and successive sessions increase strenuousness each time until your brain gets the first full workout with the fifth session. After that, things can happen pretty quickly. Most people achieve what they want during the first twenty sessions. Generally, things like increased focus, clarity, less anxiety or better sleep happen relatively soon, while severe afflictions like PTSD or autism may require upwards of 20 sessions. Persisting with the process peels layer after layer of baggage from your subconscious, just like psychotherapy, but without the tedious and often painful analysis, much quicker and more thoroughly.
Because neurofeedback removes causes, improvements are usually permanent, unlike treatments with drugs that address only the symptoms.
How frequently should I have sessions?
It is recommended that you have your first five sessions relatively close to each other, one, two, or maximum three days apart. Up to the 20th session have them optimally twice a week, but not less than once a week. If you continue beyond twenty sessions, take them as frequently as feels good to you, perhaps weekly at first, less frequently later.
Do you guarantee success?
It’s not possible to predict your unique response to neurofeedback training or its outcome. Each person’s journey and results vary. Some people experience much shift and growth right away while others are slow and steady in their progress. It’s possible you will perceive little or no progress. Progress is rarely straightforward, but goes up and down, although each down is usually not as deep as the previous one.
It’s expensive…
While I understand that it is not always easy to come up with money for a series of sessions, do consider that neurofeedback might remove debilitating traumas from your psyche in a matter of days or weeks, results for which you might have to feed a psychotherapist for many years if you’ll have results at all. The effects of freedom from trauma are priceless. Also consider the monetary, psychological and physical cost of pharmaceuticals that may have to be taken forever to subdue afflictions neurofeedback is able to address permanently with just a few non-invasive sessions.* Or have you thought about the cost of cigarettes, pot, wine or coffee, things for which the desire may simply disappear as a “side effect” of neurofeedback? No, neurofeedback is one of the most cost effective, least expensive means to address a great variety of conditions.*
But the brain can’t grow new cells…
Brain science makes great strides these days, so what was considered truth yesterday may no longer be accurate today. The popular myth that adult brains are incapable of changing and growing new cells has been refuted by scientific findings reported as early as 2004. Google “brain grows neurons” today and you’ll find well over 2 million entries attesting to the fact.
Today’s cutting edge neurofeedback technology builds on the fact that the human brain is malleable, flexible and capable of growing new neural pathways. If you are in neurofeedback training, you can support this process by consuming plenty of fluid and protein.
Is this some sort of New Age fad?
Well, it is New Age in the best sense of the meaning – a revolutionary approach to self-improvement and health, leaving many of the old therapeutical and chemical approaches in the dust. The beginnings of neurofeedback go back almost fifty years meanwhile and the latest technological advances are based on solid, cutting edge brain science, with quantifiable, measurable results. It is definitely not some woo-woo thingy, or a placebo. It is used by many reputable health professionals with great success. It’s just that the FDA is very slow and reluctant to evaluate and approve of methods that don’t enrich the pharmaceutical industry or established, insurance based medicine.
Isn’t this dangerous?
No. The particular method I am using has been carefully developed and tested over twenty years and offers a completely individualized process that takes the state of your brain into account every fraction of a second. Even changes to your brain that happen during a session are taken into account immediately and in real time. No two clients will receive the same feedback, which results in absolutely taylored and unique progress that is gentle, safe and lasting. Furthermore, no particular brain wave frequencies are up- or downtrained, but the system always looks at the entire brain and gently nudges it to improve its overall efficiency. This appoach is unique even among professional neurofeedback systems. There is no more holistic and safe neurofeedback method available at this time.
Also keep in mind that the sensors I attach to your head and ears do nothing more than their name says: they sense and read your brain waves, they do not put anything back into your brain. The feedback happens exclusively through ear buds, or visually for severely hearing impaired folks.
Of course it is possible to train your brain waves in less than beneficial ways, so beware of cheap and not-so-cheap gadgets and overpriced CDs that promise quick one-size-fits-all solutions to sleep problems, meditation enhancement, etc. marketed under the label of neurofeedback. I would be particularly weary of so-called binaural entrainment, which up-train certain frequencies of the brain that are thought to be beneficial for relaxation, meditation, sleep, etc. The uptraining of certain frequencies without taking the entire brain into consideration may cause detrimental imbalances.