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.