Here are the two articles that my mentor, John Anderson, wrote (with suble changes):

Neurofeedback: Alternative Health Care for Robots?

Many people interested in alternative health react to the word “EEG biofeedback” with hesitation. It doesn’t sound very organic. It doesn’t even sound holistic. Talk about bodywork, herbal medicine, homeopathy, spiritual healing or any of the other approaches usually associated with alternative health care, and most people have some sort of feeling level response. That response is probably positive. These approaches seem nurturing and familiar, low tech, not part of the electronic age. They are from a calmer age, an age when life was slower and more natural.

Biofeedback and, more recently neurofeedback (brainwave biofeedback using the EEG), seem to be high tech, electronic. Sort of what a robot or an android might use for a health problem, not something that could help a person trying to simplify his or her life. Being attached by wires to an electronic gadget (a computer no less!), and learning to control brainwaves sounds like a science fiction story, not a method of natural healing.

Neurofeedback is actually one way that technology is truly holistic. Many people all over the world devote a great deal of time and energy learning to regulate their brainwaves. They just call it different things. Some call it trance work, some call it meditation, some call it psychic healing. Zen monks, yogis, Sufis, Chi Gong masters and others spend 20 years or more learning to reach certain states of consciousness. Some do it because these are thought to be healing states. Some are trying to reach a state of freedom, a release from pain or suffering. Some are just trying to find a better, more calm and centered way to live.

Neurotherapy practitioners throughout the world are using neurofeedback with adults and children who have learning problems, anxiety, headaches, depression, sleep problems, ADHD and more. Let’s use the common example of the ADHD child. The typical western medical treatment for these children is medication. Ritalin, antidepressants, and anti-seizure medications are routinely given to children as young as 3 or 4 years old with the prospect of continuing these medications into adulthood. Neurofeedback is an effective alternative that teaches these children to alter brainwave states in a way that usually results in a significant change in their conditions. Of course medication may be necessary for some individuals but many prefer to try this simple, non-invasive approach first and use medication as a last resort. Others have tried medication, have not found relief and are interested in trying something else.

So how does it work? The effects of Neurofeedback are similar to those of medications. Only it is not habit forming, has no “side effects”, doesn’t cause long term problems, and doesn’t mask or cover up underlying causal factors. It provides a lasting learning experience that the children can take with them throughout their lives. Neurofeedback is a learning process just like meditation. The child learns to sit still and pay attention, first to an external indication of how his or her brain is functioning, and then to an internal awareness that becomes as easy as breathing.

Much of what is taught in meditative traditions are techniques for eliciting the kind of balanced awareness that the children learn to reach through neurofeedback. Sensors are attached to the head and ears, and brainwave information is given to the child through a simple “pac-man” or similar computer game. The only difference is, the child plays the computer game with his or her brainwaves. When brainwaves are in a balanced pattern and the child is relaxed, the pac-man turns bright yellow, moves along eating dots and beeping. When the child “drifts” away from this desirable state, the pac-man stops, turns dark and no beeps are generated. The child learns to reach this balanced state by getting immediate “feedback” or information about what works and what doesn’t. Self-regulation skills that take a meditator years of trial and error to develop, the child learns more easily because of accurate feedback.

The neurofeedback process is using something most kids and many adults are already attracted to, namely computers and computer games. In this case though, the technology helps them learn the ancient arts of self-regulation. The body/mind is an integrated whole that has lots of self-regulating mechanisms. These mechanisms get out of whack in our modern world as they did in the old days, only now more severely. That is what natural healing methods try to correct. Neurofeedback is one of those methods that try to enlist the person’s own self-regulatory mechanisms to create a state of optimal health. It works on a very subtle level and leads to remarkable changes.

The process is similar whether the individual is trying to become more alert and energetic or whether s/he is learning to reach a calm, centered, meditative state. The feedback is specific to the brainwave frequency patterns typical of the desired state. The feedback is instant and accurate and makes the learning process significantly more effective.

So why haven’t I heard of it, you say? Well, it doesn’t fit very well into the natural or alternative-healing arena, although it is often mentioned in this context by the mainstream media. It is not well accepted by the mainstream medical community either because it is hard to prove what is happening and how it is helping in a way that western medical personnel are willing to accept, (sort of like acupuncture and homeopathy!) It is also cutting edge technology, and that turns some people off who would normally be natural candidates for this approach.

Neurofeedback or neurotherapy is being used successfully for treating addictions, chronic pain, PMS, bulimia, anxiety disorders and a whole host of other conditions. This also doesn’t sit well with the regular medical community because it sounds like a “cure all,” and that is an instant red flag in medicine. “The more things you claim to help with one technique, the more likely it is to be quackery”, said one prominent psychologist about neurotherapy.

So what can you do to find out about neurotherapy? You can read the book A Symphony in the Brain by Jim Robbins. You can also log on to the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) web site (www.aapb.org) or the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (www.isnr.org) or the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America (BCIA) (www.bcia.org). By the way, BCIA is the only institute recognized worldwide granting certification to biofeedback practitioners. BCIA was established in 1981 with the mission of protecting the general public by establishing strict standards for biofeedback practitioners. Currently, more than 1,500 health care professionals (including Dr. David Hallman) have achieved certification in either general, EEG, or pelvic muscle dysfunction biofeedback. Many clinicians have more than one certification. The field is growing fast and more people are requesting neurotherapy from their doctors, their schools and from their health providers. If enough people want neurotherapy for themselves and their children, it will become a part of mainstream medicine as a viable alternative to medication management of illness.

EEG Biofeedback / Neurofeedback / Neurotherapy

Imagine a method of personal growth and change that helps correct problems as diverse as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in children and drug addiction in adults. This same technique helps people with depression, migraine headaches, chronic pain, anxiety disorders, PMS, seizure disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorders, and many other difficult conditions.

Sound too good to be true? Think it’s impossible to fix all these unrelated conditions with the same approach? Think such a suggestion is just plain ridiculous or, worse yet, some “quack medicine” hype?

Think again. The approach we are talking about is as old as spiritual experience and as new as the latest high speed computer interface. It’s as exciting and “cutting edge” as brain chemical research, and yet it’s also grounded in the most ancient understandings of human growth and development.

We’re talking about EEG (brainwave) biofeedback (usually called neurofeedback.)

Say the word biofeedback to most people, and they respond, “Oh, I know what that is!” Yet neurofeedback is as far beyond traditional biofeedback as the space shuttle is beyond the first airplane. The use of brainwave feedback allows people to develop skills which often take 20 years or more to learn through traditional approaches.

So what exactly is neurofeedback and what is really happening during neurofeedback training? Does it really work? Are there side effects? Does it turn you into a robot? Does it take over your brain? Does everyone think it’s great or are there differences of opinion?

Neurofeedback has quite a history. During the 70’s, “alpha training” was touted as the great cure for humanity’s ills. It was supposed to lead you to instant nirvana, get rid of depression, cure drug problems and do whatever else you might want it to do. Trouble was, at that time, to truly monitor brainwaves accurately, you needed a research quality EEG machine and a shielded room. Those who had good equipment got good results, but they were in the minority. Most equipment in use then didn’t give accurate feedback and so the process rarely worked. Thus alpha training, and EEG biofeedback in general, fell into disrepute.

Some people, however, had access to highly sophisticated EEG equipment. One such person, Barry Sterman of UCLA, found that cats trained to produce a certain brainwave frequency (12 to 15 Hz [cycles per second]) were more resistant to chemically induced seizures than cats which had not been so trained. He then tried teaching this technique to human subjects who had seizures that did not respond to medication. These people were able to decrease seizure activity after learning to produce more of this specific brainwave, dubbed SMR or Sensory Motor Rhythm.

This was exciting news! The idea that a person with a seizure disorder could learn to control the seizures through some internal means was revolutionary! But that wasn’t all. Some of the people in these studies seemed to also experience improvement in other areas, such as school work and job performance. Dr. Sterman, the graduate students working with him, and other researchers and clinicians were excited by these findings. Since that time, many more successful applications have been developed by Joel Lubar of the University of Tennessee, Alyce and Elmer Green of the Menninger Foundation in Kansas, Susan and Sigfreid Othmer of EEG Spectrum in California and Eugene Peniston of the VA Medical Center in Fort Lyon, Colorado.

So how does someone learn to control his or her brainwaves? Traditional biofeedback, ie., muscle relaxation training, hand warming, etc. has been in use for years. Biofeedback is based on the knowledge that if a person is given information about a physical response, in a clear and meaningful way, then the person can learn to control that response. If you can see a dial, a meter, a number, a moving line, or hear a variable tone that represents your skin temperature (measured by a sensor on your skin), you can learn to dilate or contract the blood vessels in that area and cause the skin to warm up or cool down.

Brainwave neurofeedback works the same way. You may watch a visual display, like a “pac-man” game, where the pac-man changes colors, moves along, eating dots on the screen and beeping when you are producing the desired brainwave patterns. This information helps the brain learn to make normal transitions between brainwave states, rather than being habitually stuck in one state most of the time.

Everyone uses this kind of feedback every day. We touch a hot stove, feel pain and quickly (I hope!) move away from the heat. When the pac-man beeps, moves along and eats dots, it is saying “Way to go!”, “Good job!”, “You are doing it just right now!”

Suppose all this is true. Why does controlling or changing brainwaves have such a powerful effect?

The “why” is a little hard to pin down. The conditions which respond to neurofeedbak seem to be related to the brain being “stuck” in certain brainwave patterns.

The depressed person seems to be stuck in a low arousal pattern. The brain is not producing the activity common in a “normally” functioning person. The anxious person’s brain may be producing too much high frequency brainwave activity and that person may need to learn to make the transition to a more relaxed, lower arousal state from time to time. The child or adult with an attention problem may have trouble making the shift to an alert, focused brainwave state.. The person with a substance abuse problem may produce too much high arousal brainwaves and not enough of the brainwaves that make people feel good. Using a substance or a behavior to reverse this is only a temporary fix, neurofeedback teaches a natural, and possibly permanent solution.

The common denominator for all of these people is that, before neurofeedback, the brain was stuck and after training, the brain becomes more flexible.

So now that we have an idea of why it works, how do we find out who is providing this service? Although Dr. Hallman of Queenswood Professional Resource Group Inc. does provide this service out of Prince George, B.C., qualified practitioners can be found through BCIA (www.bcia.org).

Neurofeedback training is the most exciting and innovative technique to come along in years. It is also the logical evolution of much that has preceded it. Neurotherapy is controversial. Some are threatened by it. Some believe it to be completely unfounded and impossible to prove. Those who have tried it know something is happening that isn’t explained by placebo effect or wishful thinking. Check it out for yourself or for your children. Be skeptical, but open minded and make your own decisions.