About once a year or so, I encounter someone who is afraid of neurofeedback and asks about the harm it can do. It feels like now is a good time to address this issue once again.
Neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback for the brain, which means that individuals have the metaphoric equivalent of a mirror held up to the brain and then receive rewards in the form of audio tones, making a movie go, or advancing in simple video games. It’s non-invasive, and many think of it as a teaching tool for a part of the body we don’t normally think we can control. Given that it is such a gentle tool, it should come as no surprise that:
There are no scientific studies published in any peer-reviewed journals which indicate that a full training regimen of neurofeedback (25-60 sessions, depending upon the person) causes any lasting harm. None.
This fact often isn’t enough to convince people, especially those who’ve read some of the wilder opinion pieces available from so-called authorities on the Internet, so they press for more details. Except, there really aren’t more details. In the hands of a competent and attentive practitioner, the worst outcome is nothing changing. This generally happens as a result of medications or conditions beyond the scope of neurofeedback. It may also come from a practitioner using a one-size-fits-all approach to training rather than customizing training to individual needs. Nothing changing is a frustrating waste of time and money, but it is not a physical harm.
The vast majority of the time, the opposite happens, and brain training feels good. Indeed, most of the so-called “side effects” of training please the people doing training. Quite often, for example, people who train with me experience improved sleep, most likely because their bodies are relaxing for the first time in ages. I’ve also had people experience side effects such as improving academic performance, learning to read music far more quickly than expected, and having aversions fade away. My theory as to why this happens is that neurofeedback is not a tool that precisely targets specific pathways in the brain. Instead, it trains pools of neurons within a couple of centimeters of each other. This means that something as simple as training to relax results in the effects of relaxation in more than one aspect of life.
All this said, in the hands of incompetent or inattentive practitioners, there can be short-term troubles. I have heard stories of practitioners and technicians who have trained the wrong things during sessions and caused increased anxiety and/or panic attacks. Even then, these are transitory—lasting less than a day—unless a person continues training the wrong thing for long enough that it becomes an ingrained pattern. It’s hard to imagine a trainee tolerating that kind of negligence.
Occasionally, some individuals feel tired after sessions. This sense of fatigue most likely comes because the brain isn’t used to what the exercises are rewarding it for doing, and it almost always passes 10-15 minutes after the end of a session. It is not practitioner error or a harm any more than tired muscles after a workout at the gym are a sign of harm.
The Real Question of Safety
The bottom line is that even though I have responded in this post directly to the question of harm, this generally isn’t really the question people want answered. The actual question which lies underneath this concern of harm is, “How do I know I can trust you with MY concern or with MY loved one?”
My response is that I do neurofeedback because I have passion for it as a tool. I’ve been using it for a long time, and I work on learning still more so that I am continually improving. I have spent my entire professional career focused on appropriate service to others, and I promise to you that if you take the leap of faith to work with me, you will experience the caring that underlies my commitment to brain training.