An Introduction to Neurofeedback (What’s that on your head?)

Are you struggling with symptoms of anxiety, depression, memory issues, or chronic pain? Have things just not been the same since your stroke, concussion, or traumatic brain injury?  Are you looking for non-invasive, non-medicine options for improving your symptoms and getting things back on track? Then neurofeedback is for you!

This Introduction to Neurofeedback will give you the 4-1-1 on this exclusive offering at Harper Therapy! Neurofeedback therapy is training for your brain. You go to the gym to work out your heart and muscles.  Come to Harper Therapy to work out your brain!

First, a brain map

We’ll be looking at your brain to see which areas are over functioning or under-functioning and not operating exactly what we want them to be.  These are the things that may be causing you some kind of symptoms or problems in your normal day life - and we'll be looking at those issues so that we can train your brain to not do them anymore.You'll come in, and we’ll put a lovely cap on you. Then we'll have real-time recordings of your brain's interactions and communication with itself. This will be a functional brain map, so it be how your brain is actually functioning. We're not seeing how physically it looks, we're looking at how functionally it looks. We're seeing which areas are activating properly, which areas aren't activating properly.

Then, based off of whatever symptoms bringing you in, as well as what we find in the brain map, we will make you a custom protocol

Then, we train

Then, we'll train your brain to try to work in a more efficient way to help your functioning in day to day life. Neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback, which uses the body's own response mechanism to reduce symptoms. With neurofeedback, we use the neurological components of the brain’s electrical waves to naturally treat symptoms.

Neurofeedback training is very similar to training your dog. Your dog goes outside to use the bathroom, it comes in, you give it a treat. So over time, your dog learns that it should go outside to use the bathroom because it gets a treat. We're doing essentially the exact same thing with your brain. When your brain does what we want it to do, what we consider "good", you'll get a “treat”, and the “treat” in our case will be music or video, depending on what you're here for. This says to your brain, "Good job! Keep it up!" Over time, your brain learns to act that way on a normal, regular basis without us interfering, so it's a long-term, long-lasting effect, without the need for ongoing medication. This is called Operant Conditioning, like with Pavlov's Dogs. This results in ongoing, long-term change in the way that the brain is communicating and operating.

Another map for results

We have those certain set of sessions, typically around 15, where we're training the brain to a more optimal functioning, and then at the end of that process we do another brain map. One of the great things about this is it's long-lasting and the improvements are shown to work after the treatments over. After your training sessions, we'll do another brain map at the end and that way we can actually do a direct comparison and we can see what improvements that you have had.

That's the cool thing about this. I've done neurofeedback with someone before and they had some improvement of symptoms, but when we saw that pre and post brain map there was just such relief for that person because they said, "I knew I was feeling better. I knew that the symptoms were feeling better. But now I can actually see how differently now my brain is looking and how it's differently communicating with itself."

So it's a real tangible thing!

How the Brain Works

One of the reasons that we offer neurofeedback services at Harper Therapy is that it's a really effective, holistic approach to treating things like anxiety, depression, trauma, and head injuries.  Founder Yolanda Harper was first introduced to neurofeedback in the context of combat veteran retreats and was really hooked from the very beginning when she was able to see the brain’s functioning in real time and know that treatment is relatively brief with long-lasting benefits. 

So, what happens is that you have something like anxiety or depression where the brain is over-responding or under-responding, as well as considering the connections between the brain. One of the most important things about your brain is how it communicates with itself in the different areas of the brain.Neurofeedback is helping your brain learn more effective ways of talking to itself.

An important thing to know about this is that there's no electrical component here

This is EEG technology. So if you've had an EEG, if you've had a sleep study, this is that level of technology that we're using and then the neurofeedback component itself is rewarding the brain, so kind of like training the dogs. There's no current at all, we're not sending any kind of electrical stimulation or anything into your head whatsoever. The EEG itself is purely observing your brain and when your brain is doing what we want it to do, we give it a little treat, which in our case is music.

It's really a way of therapy for the future and again a nice holistic option for things like anxiety, depression, trauma, any kind of brain injury. If you've had a concussion, if you have had a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury, if you've had a stroke, this is a nice option as far as helping you reduce symptoms, helping the brain to heal, operate more effectively, and communicate more effectively with itself. 

Learn more about our Neurofeedback Therapy Services and our Neurofeedback Specialist, Ben. Call Harper Therapy at 813-434-3639 for a free consultation, and to find out how neurofeedback can help you!