Biofeedback and Neurofeedback in Talk Therapy

Psychologists and psychotherapists are not all just having people sit in a chair or lay on a couch to just have people talk to them about their problems.  They are using evidence-based, science-based tools to help them address the body as well as the mind.  Science is proving that the body is involved in problems like anxiety, PTSD, and trauma.  It’s not all in the mind.  The mind has to work through the brain, so problems of the mind also involve the brain.  Neurofeedback is among the tools that can be used to affect the brain.  Encouraging the brain to increase or decrease various signals that can be picked up with neurofeedback equipment can help to train the brain to decrease unhealthy patterns that may be related to clinical symptoms.

Experts including Stephen Porges, Ph.D., author of the Polyvagal Theory, and Bessel van dir Kolk author of The Body Keeps Score are two proponents of the idea that the body is very much involved with problems of the mind.  Talking alone often will not solve problems like anxiety, PTSD, and trauma.

EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, tapping, binaural sounds, singing, dancing, tai chi are among the tools that involve the body and can have an effect on connections and activity in the brain. Since neurofeedback directly records and gives feedback information from the brain, it also can help to normalize problematic patterns and activity in the brain.  Once the normalization takes place the talk therapy can be more effective.

While neurofeedback deals more specifically with brain activity in the central nervous system, peripheral biofeedback measures activity from the peripheral and autonomic nervous system.  When someone has anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, or trauma, you can bet that they have at least one of the following: fast, shallow breathing, excess muscle tension, cold hands, sweaty hands, fast, erratic heartbeat.  Biofeedback allows measuring and training any or all of these signs that the body is reacting and out of balance.  It helps the therapist show their clients that the body is reacting and it can also tell them when it calms down and is more in balance.  Biofeedback equipment can be used as a training tool itself and it can be used as a way to monitor the effects of other tools a therapist is using.

Harry L. Campbell

914-762-4646 – Harry@biofeedbackinternational.com

Author of What Stress Can Do, Available on Amazon.com

Biofeedback Resources International Corp.