Things have changed in 2020 for many people and many businesses.  The year’s stresses have magnified pre-existing problems and brought out new levels of stress for so many.  For me, this has resulted in an increasing number of people who are reaching out to inquire about neurofeedback for their entire family.

I’ve always worked with families, but it used to look a little different. Usually, one person would come for brain training, and as they progressed toward their goals, other family members would notice and want it for themselves, too. Occasionally, a parent would choose to train at the same time for moral support and be surprised to get equivalent or even greater benefit than the child.

Now, though, people are wanting multiple family members to come in at the same time. As a result, I have adapted how I work to accommodate simultaneous family work for those who want it.  Here’s how that looks different:

My typical approach is to work one-on-one with each trainee. I observe that person’s training carefully while they are training and often tweak what is happening during training. Each session lasts an hour, and we use every minute of it productively.

Now, though, I have a second station set up in the conference room where I used to teach aspiring practitioners and home trainers from around the country. In this room, I can train a second person at approximately the same time as a family member is training.  During training, I bounce back and forth between the two rooms to ensure that everything is going smoothly and nothing needs adjusted. I ensure that both trainees receive some one-on-one time with me and that their system is set up and adjusted to optimize their training time.

When it works, this is an excellent way to be efficient in terms of time and money.  It takes longer per session—90 minutes instead of 60, but getting two people trained at once means saving time overall—90 minutes instead of the two hours it takes for individual sessions.  In addition, it is a cost savings, because you’re paying less than the price of two individual sessions.

There are drawbacks, too. If you have more than two people who want to train, I will not train three at once. I insist upon offering personalized training, and more than two people dilutes that too much (and, because I do not adopt a clinical model, I do not hire technicians). If you have three who wish to come for training, that will require two separate appointments, although those can be back-to-back.

For best results, some people require one-on-one work, which means this approach does not work for all families.  This is one reason why an initial consultation is important to determine the parameters for your family’s individual needs.

If you’re considering a fresh start for your family in the new year and want to consider the time and cost savings of family training, give me a call or email me at Tamera @ BrainShapeLLC.com.

Based on a few recent conversations, I feel like it’s important to note that neurofeedback isn’t all about illness and unwellness. It’s about learning to tune into your own body and allowing it to reset itself in ways that improve your performance and sense of well-being.  It’s about helping people optimize their own functioning in gentle yet powerful ways.

I am not fond of the perspective that people who are struggling in some way are diseased, disordered, or broken. And, in fact, many of the people who come to my office for training are not at all seeking to fix something that’s broken or seems wrong. They often simply have a sense that they could be a better version of themselves—less stressed, more relaxed, more productive, or maybe even more joyful. They want to invest in themselves in meaningful ways.  Those aren’t just hokey words for this type of person; they are goals.

Especially in these crazy and unsettled times, investing in oneself is something to consider. It often makes perfect sense and is the right next step.

Earlier today, I received a call from someone who asked me my philosophy of practice.  It occurred to me that somewhere in the process of maintaining my website, I’d deleted this information and ought to clarify it. So, here it is in blog form, and I have also given it a place on the website.

It’s really quite simple and boils down to just a few key points:

You are an individual, not a disease or diagnosis. Every person’s brain is a one-of-a-kind creation based on genetics and how the brain has responded to its environment and life events.  Therefore, when you come in for training, I consider your brain to be unique and adjust my training accordingly.

I train to YOUR brain’s patterns.  I look at what’s actually happening inside your brain using an assessment tool called the Trainers’ QEEG. This snapshot in time gives me a sense of your brain’s electrical energy habits and informs me better than any label or diagnosis. It’s unique to you.

I train toward optimal.  Research has shown a myriad of ways in which a person’s brain can create unhelpful patterns.  However, optimal brains share certain characteristics in their energy patterns. I believe in training each person to have more optimal functioning. What that means in practical terms is that I am philosophically not in alignment with training to a diagnosis.  (Besides, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental health conditions is a committee-created document based on checklists of symptoms.  Although the psychiatrists who create it have attempted in recent years to update it according to brain science, it still does not reflect what is happening electrically in the brain. This makes training based on diagnoses a hit or miss proposition.)

I do NOT believe you are secretly broken. It doesn’t matter that you have had developmental trauma or abuse, can’t sleep at night, or are having trouble functioning in life. Your brain has responded to the world around you in ways that were intended to help you survive. If you think about it, that is magnificent. It’s not a personality or character flaw, and we can work to help you re-regulate your own brain to serve you better in the here-and-now.

I am client-led. This means that I do my best to listen to you, your goals, and how your body responds to training. This is especially important when working with children or teens.

I believe in partnering.  I love numbers and graphs, but the brain map (another name for the Trainers’ QEEG) is only part of the process. The other part is focusing on your goals. What you want to achieve from neurofeedback is a big part of deciding where and how to train.  We will work together as a trainer/trainee team to tweak the feedback so that you get as much as you can from your work with me.

I am a team player. Neurofeedback is an amazing, powerful, and gentle tool. However, it is not a magic wand that one can wave and fix everything. If it appears that you would benefit from the services of another provider, I will suggest that. If you already have a team of caregivers, I will communicate with those other providers when it is appropriate to do so (and, of course, only with written permission).

If this approach to neurofeedback interests you, please give me a call or fill out the email contact form here.

Some people who come in for consultations have a question that they seem to need to build up the courage to ask, as if it will insult me.  That question is:  How well does neurofeedback really work?

For others, especially skeptical spouses or those who encounter me in professional settings outside my office, the question is more blunt:  Does neurofeedback work at all?

I don’t blame people for wanting to dig deeper and know the truth.  Neurofeedback isn’t especially well known, so it doesn’t serve anyone well to leave such a critical unasked or unanswered.

Here’s my answer:

Yes, neurofeedback works.  It can make a difference for almost everyone; the question is usually more a matter of how much change might happen, not whether it will happen.

And, no, neurofeedback does not work for everyone.  I try to filter out people I don’t think I can help with brain training, because it does no good for a client to waste time and money on something that ends up frustrating us both.  That said, I’ve accidentally let a few clients slip through my filters over the years. It has only happened a handful of times.

Only once, out of the countless people who have come to my office, have I ever had someone come in who I thought was a good candidate for training who did not receive results. We stopped shortly into training when we mutually agreed it wasn’t a good plan to continue. The perfectionist in me is still bothered by that one.

Everyone else has seen results.  They tend to fall into a few categories, from transformational experiences to more modest results.

Here are a few examples of significant transformations:

• One person from several years ago had a serious brain injury. By the time he came to me, he’d finished his intensive medical care and healing, had gone back to school, and was trying yet failing to pass the CPA exam.  A few months into our work together, he passed the first segment of the exam. After we completed our work together, he passed the remaining sections. It was such a thrill for both of us to see how he’d gone from struggling to absorb information into thriving in a new job and earning his CPA. He told me that brain training changed his life.

• Yet another had his parents and his psychotherapist at their wits’ end. One parent described getting him ready for school and ready for bed to be akin to wrestling a bear, and his teachers had huge discipline problems in the classroom.  The boy’s psychotherapist referred him to me, and by the end of the training, this young man was calmer and happier. His results stuck, and over the years, he has become a delight to have in the classroom and earned regular placement on the honor roll.  The parents attributed this to neurofeedback.

A second category of client achieves important changes, but their shifts are not necessarily as showy or dramatic.  This group represents most of my clients. For example:

• One adult client who has autism came to see me for calming. His mother was also hoping he would begin talking as a result of our work together. That didn’t happen, but because we were working on calming his body, his doctor was able to take him off all his anti-anxiety medications. His mother expressed great joy at that change in his ability to regulate himself and his reactions to his environment.

• A teen client came to me for calming in the wake of multiple suicides at her school. In addition to feeling stress from the loss of a friend, she was staying up almost all night trying to earn good enough grades to get into a top university. These efforts led to her to sleeping just a couple of hours a night, and she was pretty ramped-up with worry most of the time. Part-way into our training, she was actually mad at me because she was sleeping a solid six hours a night and losing what she thought was important study time. Her mother, however, reported that the increased sleep and greater relaxation were making the girl more productive in her studies and better able to cope with her grief.

• Numerous adopted teens have come to my office and achieved significant calming. Mothers describe reduced hypervigilance, increased affection, and overall reduced worry and stress.

A final set of people experience more mild changes.  People with really stuck brains, such as some senior citizens, some with chronic health conditions, and some with autism or autism-like concerns also experience results, but their results tend to take longer to appear. If they stick with training more than most, then they, too, achieve powerful results.

Neurofeedback works.  It helps people find better and more productive ways of showing up in the world, and almost everyone who is a good candidate for training and who shows up consistently experiences positive change.

If you are curious and want to know whether you might be one of those good candidates, please reach out via email or phone. I’m happy to answer your questions.