Tag Archives: neurofeedback

Let’s Talk Money

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How much does this cost?

It seems that no matter where on my website I have placed the cost of my services, people have trouble finding it.  (Right now, costs are mentioned under each modality.) I thought it would be a good idea to lay out the question of dollar cost to make it easier to find.

However, I don’t think that numbers tell the whole story. The actual cost of the service really ought to be compared with what you’re getting in exchange for payment.  My intention is that if you work with me, you receive good value and not just a financial bargain.

NEUROFEEDBACK

What you get:

  • The opportunity to work with a person who is among the most experienced in Northern Virginia. I’ve been doing neurofeedback for close to 20 years, and there are only a few of us in the area who have dedicated that much time to their craft. You get solid knowledge and skills, personalized and customized to your specific needs and wants.
  • A good environment. There are no white coats to scare you or give you high blood pressure in my office—the emphasis is on calming and relaxation. Sure, the science and technology are there, but my EEG device, HEG gear, and other equipment are purposely kept low-key. The vibe is good for stressed-out and anxious people to come make transformations peacefully.
  • Enough time in training sessions. I train for a solid hour. That hour involves set up and checking in on progress made, 40 minutes or more of actual brain training, and clean up. I’m not a big believer in 20 minutes of training being enough (though of course for children and those with neurodivergence, 20 minutes may be the maximum tolerable; I customize rather than bulldoze through).

The cost:

I begin with a brain map (called a Trainers’ QEEG) most of the time. That is $345. Individual sessions are $140. Insurance does not cover my services, but HSAs usually do. I typically charge 10 sessions in advance to keep bookkeeping overhead at a minimum, but I vary from that plan to help when requested—it’s one of the flexibilities that come from being in charge.

Because neurofeedback is a financial commitment, I do offer payment plans without interest for those who need other payment arrangements.

HYPNOSIS

What you get:

  • In-person or online sessions. I’m certified in both. You have the luxury of making change from the peace of your own home if that’s what you prefer, or experiencing quiet and privacy in my office. It’s your choice!
  • Structured experience, customized for you. I’m trained in 5-PATH hypnosis, which is a way of structuring sessions to get big- and long-term changes in just 4-6 sessions. I bring creativity and experience to sessions so that the structure works for you.
  • Appointments are scheduled for two hours. Not every appointment lasts that long—sometimes we’re finished in about an hour—but I set aside two full hours in case your needs require a bit more. Like everything else, it’s customized for you. And, this way, you know you’ll get everything done without feeling like you’re being rushed out the door.

The cost:

 $275 per session, each payable 24 hours in advance.

ACCESS BARS

What you get:

One hour of an internationally known, phenomenally relaxing session that provides touch to 32 points on the scalp.

The cost:

$145 per session, payable 24 hours in advance.

*Please note that these are the dollar costs as of October 2024. They are subject to change.

What is a Brain Map?

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A brain map is how I almost always get started with a round of neurofeedback training. It is a measurement of the electrical activity in the brain and is conducted to help the brain trainer know what and where to train to help a person reach their goals.

This is done using precise spots on the head. Neurofeedback uses the same address system on the scalp that neurologists use, called the international 10-20 system. Each of these sites on the scalp corresponds to brain functions in the area below it, so it matters where on the head we place electrodes. Most practitioners are like me and will conduct some kind of brain map.

Brain maps can be cursory or thorough, and the results can be beneficial or sometimes needlessly overly specific. For example, some maps only measure activity at one or two sites out of the 20 on the scalp. Others take measurements that result in 150 or more pages of results, yet all this highly specific data result in suggesting training at just one or two sites on the head.

My approach to measuring is to take recordings of the electrical activity at 20 places on the scalp using something called the Trainers’ QEEG. Each recording captures a person’s state while her eyes are closed, open, and open while conducting tasks such as repeating digits, listening for content, etc. I process these recordings using software that involves many algorithms to help compare the person’s brain against itself. I review these findings, then generate a training plan that involves rotating through a series of what we call protocols—names of places on the brain, along with the electrical frequencies or connections that would benefit from training.  The process of brain mapping takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, with extra time dedicated to analyzing the results.

The training plan that results from these measurements is called Whole-Brain Training. It involves training multiple sites on the scalp, almost like circuit-training the body. A person doing healthy physical training would not train just the quadriceps, because this could result in an imbalance and possibly a pulled hamstring. The same concept applies to neurofeedback. Training just one spot in the brain may sometimes be fine, is almost never harmful, but is usually not optimal.

I conduct Trainers’ QEEGs on almost all of my clients. The exceptions are young children, who can rarely sit still long enough to get reliable measurements, and on rare occasion the adults who also cannot tolerate the process of sitting with one’s eyes closed in an office.

To me, brain maps are foundational, because they entail looking at the brain rather than guessing based on a person’s complaints or goals. If you’d like to learn more about the brain map process and neurofeedback in general, give me a call, or schedule a consultation here.

Prescription Medications and Neurofeedback     

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One of the questions I’m often asked during consultations is whether a person can continue taking medications during brain training. The short answer is yes, but the longer answer to that is nuanced.

The first and most important thing to keep in mind before addressing the issue of brain training and medications is that no one should be going off or skipping medications that their doctor has prescribed unless they are working with that doctor to do so. Period. That means, don’t stop using your medications abruptly just because you want to do neurofeedback.

If a person decides to do neurofeedback while taking prescription medications, it is important to work with their prescribing doctor and learn about the signs of over-medication for whatever product they are consuming. Often, those who use neurofeedback find that they need to reduce the dosage or eliminate their medications. It is not my job, nor is it within the scope of my practice, to advise when and where to start lowering medications. Only a physician should be doing this, which is why I am rather adamant about the issue of over-medication and talking to one’s doctor.

All those caveats aside, from a neurofeedback perspective, using medications while doing brain training is fine. My neurofeedback software is set up to train a person’s brain right where it is at the time one arrives for training. This means that the brain is receiving feedback as it is in the moment. A medicated brain gets trained where it’s at, and an unmedicated brain trains where it’s at in any given moment, too.

Let’s say that I set the computer system to reward the brain 80% of the time. It is going to train 80% of a medicated brain’s state, just as it is going to train 80% of a fresh, morning brain or 80% of a tired-at-the-end-of-a-long-work-day brain. The brain is going to receive a good workout, but the workout is customized to meet the needs of a fresh, tired, medicated, or unmedicated brain. That’s part of the beauty of the software.

There is one caveat to this, and that is a category of medications called benzodiazepenes. They are quite a powerful class of drug, and they often overpower the gentle teaching tool that is neurofeedback. It’s still possible to get results if one is using a benzodiazepine-class medication, but whether those results “stick” depends upon the person’s individual physiology, as well as dosage and whether a person is taking it daily or only as needed. Again, do not change what you are doing without doctor approval, just know that with benzodiazepenes in the mix, it’s a trickier call as to whether neurofeedback will be as helpful and calming as you’d wish it to be.

The bottom line is that it is just fine to do brain training while taking your prescription medications as prescribed, but keep your doctor informed.

Snake Oil, Science, or Something Else?

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Not too long ago, I had someone say to me that they thought neurofeedback was snake oil. After I recovered from the shock of realizing that this person believed what they were saying and were bold enough to challenge me with it, I wondered how many other people secretly thought this, or perhaps hope neurofeedback is for real but fear that it is not.

Sadly, I think the tactics of some practitioners—who are usually well-intentioned—make it even more difficult to discern what is true and what is not about neurofeedback. There are neurofeedback practitioners who are straining to make neurofeedback into a form of medicine that can diagnose psychological and physical ailments. I have seen QEEG reports (a type of brain-map report) suggesting that it is X-percent likely that a person whose brain map was done has a learning disability or a traumatic brain injury, for example. In my view, that takes the world of neurofeedback way off solid ground. When people see or hear of reports like this, it’s no wonder they question the validity of neurofeedback. Yes, we can often see patterns in the brainwaves that point to problems, but at this time, neurofeedback is not a tool for diagnosing illnesses or disorders. It is a tool for training and reshaping energy patterns in the brain.

Then, there are the brain hackers and high-technology folks who are trying to devise portable devices that can serve as cheap break-throughs to the world of biological self-improvement. Some of these devices work and do what their makers say; many cannot. It’s easy to become jaded when viewing or hearing slick marketing campaigns full of fluff but utterly lacking in substance. The reality is that high-tech, portable devices are probably the direction in which the field of neurofeedback eventually will go. We’re not quite there yet, and potential users are wise to consider it to be a little like the Wild West—there’s gold out there, but it’s pretty hard to find. Regular neurofeedback has been around for decades and remains a much safer bet.

Neurofeedback absolutely has a scientific foundation. It emerged from a UCLA neuroscience lab in the late 1960s. Its practice is and has always been partially guided by what has emerged from research laboratories. This science disappoints some who expect huge, randomized, controlled studies, because it’s smaller in scope and budget than what those with deep pockets can fund. But, the research is there.

Even more progress in the field of neurofeedback comes from practitioners in regular office environments and not just university settings. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a great number of breakthroughs were discovered by people whose clients guided them to new protocols and approaches. They work.

In the end, neurofeedback is biofeedback for the brain—a computer holding up a technological version of a mirror so that the brain has a sense of its activity and how to change. Biofeedback works. Neurofeedback works.

Does it work for everybody, in all circumstances, for all things? Of course, not. It’s not a magical panacea. It’s a learning tool. It’s way more powerful tool for brain change than the snake oil scoffers want to believe. I like to think of it as a powerful learning tool that involves both science and the art of competent practice. I have seen so many transformations, both big and small, that I trust the process.

If you’re interested in learning a bit more, give me a call or sign up for a consultation. You can see the equipment and how it works, meet me, and better decide whether to use neurofeedback to improve your life.

What is Brain Training?

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All about Brain Training or NeurofeedbackPeople often ask, what is “Brain Training”?  Is it like calisthenics for my mind?

So, what is brain training?

Well, brain training, also known as neurofeedback, is a tool that, over time, creates new patterns in our brains and helps reshape old, negative habits that can unintentionally undermine us or hurt others.  It is the signature service that we at Lifeworks offer in our Vienna, Va. office.

What is a session like?

Each brain training session is administered by a professional who uses portable EEG devices and sensors called electrodes to measure faint electrical brain wave signals in the trainee’s skull. These signals are forwarded to a computer, where sophisticated software analyzes the data and rewards the brain (often in the form of a tone heard via earphones) when it produces the desired changes to the electrical patterns. Researchers believe that the brain responds to these rewards by creating new electrical patterns, similar to learning skills such as riding a bike or reading in a foreign language. Slowly, over time, trainees can teach their brains through brain training new — and lasting — positive habits and self-regulation. The training, typically 40-60 sessions of 45-90 minutes for optimum results, is painless, safe, gentle, and done in private.

Watch a video about brain training

To watch a video demonstration of brain training, click here.

Learn More!