Services

Neurofeedback

What is Neurofeedback?

Neurofeedback is like fitness training for the brain. Your clinician and the computer program are your coaching team. Just as a physical trainer crafts workouts to help people recover from injury and to foster strength, resilience, and flexibility, your clinician chooses the best protocol for your emotional and cognitive functioning. The goal is to feel better and to function better.

Based on your goals, for example to decrease anxiety, the clinician chooses where to place electrodes on your scalp. The electrode wires are connected via a small amplifier to a laptop computer. The clinician then instructs the computer program to encourage brain wave activity in the range that is likely to foster the desired results.

The sensors placed on the head simply read the electrical activity from the brain. There is no electrical stimulation going into the brain. What ensues is like a coaching conversation between your brain and the program. Via a monitor screen, visuals and sound affirm when your brain is producing more of the desired pattern and when it isn’t. For example, a nature scene on the screen becomes more detailed and lush when the brain is producing the desired pattern and fades out when it isn’t.

Neurofeedback complements how our brains naturally work. Our brains are pattern-learning machines. (1) When the brain receives information that it’s producing a desired pattern, it tends to make more of that pattern. This happens without conscious thought or effort.

All the client has to do is relax, observe the screen, and let the brain do the rest.

Psychotherapy

With a focus on trauma recovery, my practice integrates interventions from Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Flash Technique, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Lifespan Integration and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Clients in my practice with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have shown a significant reduction in flashbacks and intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, emotional reactivity, and damaged self-concept.

Neurofeedback is an essential element, whether as the primary intervention, or interwoven with other therapies, especially for otherwise treatment resistant PTSD.

How Does Neurofeedback Help?

The challenges we identify as symptoms--anxious mood, worrying, poor concentration or attention, irritability, depressed mood, tearfulness, poor sleep, hypervigilance and reactivity, migraines, gastrointestinal distress--all, regardless of the conditions which cause them, are associated with neurons in certain areas of the brain firing too fast or too slow which disrupts communication across neuronal networks.

When the brain undergoes neurofeedback training to develop more efficient patterns, it commonly leads to a reduction in symptoms and enhancement in overall functioning. Improved functioning means better mood, better sleep, better focus, more comfort in one's body, and better cognitive performance.

The efficacy of neurofeedback has been supported by research. (7) Research has shown that neurofeedback can significantly reduce symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and improve cognitive functioning in children and adolescents. (2)(7)(8) It has been found effective in reducing anxiety and depression, improving sleep, and improving overall quality of life. (3)(7)

Neurofeedback is a non-invasive intervention which, unlike medication, can produce lasting improvement in functioning once training is completed. (4) Typically benefit is seen in 7 to 10 sessions, with 20 to 40 sessions needed to produce lasting improvement. (5), (6) Given individual differences, some may require more.

What About Side Effects?

The most common side effect is frustration or discomfort in the initial sessions as clients figure out what is required of them. This is a temporary side effect as clients soon learn that there’s nothing they have to try to do or to get right: they need only observe and allow their brain to respond to the feedback.

Other possible side effects are temporary fatigue, headaches, sleep disturbance, or an increase in anxiety or depression. Any side effects will cue your clinician to make adjustments in the training to optimize results.

You may be given questionnaires to track your progress. However, the best measure of treatment efficacy is your report of your day-to-day experience. Are you feeling better, sleeping better, having more energy, feeling calmer, concentrating better and completing tasks more efficiently, etc.? Within neurofeedback sessions, the clinician will ask you about your experience with the content on the screen. Are you enjoying it, finding it engaging, or calming, or are you bored, sleepy, or feeling agitated and overstimulated? All of this information lets the clinician know what training helps the most and when adjustments are needed.

Coordinating with Other Providers

If you are doing ongoing work with a psychotherapist and would like to see me for neurofeedback, collaboration between them, you and me in crafting the best treatment plan and communication of goals and progress is essential.
If a psychiatrist, nurse practitioner, or other physician is prescribing medication for you, communication between us is key.
Coordinating care with others on your treatment team may be indicated. (For example, referral to a sleep clinic, a neurologist, or for a full-cap qEEG).

Communities Served

Adults

Teens (14+)

Offering Culturally Competent Care

LGBTQIA Allied

Fragrance Free Policy

I and some of my clients have multiple chemical sensitivities. By not wearing fragrances to your appointment and by insuring that you are free from smoking or vaping residue, you help keep the office a healthy space for everyone.
I reserve the right to turn away clients who arrive with fragrance or other residues.

(1) Cohen, Michael P . (2020). Neurofeedback 101: Rewiring the Brain for ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and Beyond. Center for Brain Training.

(2) Tan, G., Shaffer, F., Lyle, R., &; Teo, I. (2017). Evidence-based practice in biofeedback and neurofeedback (3rd ed.). AAPB

(3) Thompson, Michael & Thompson, Lynda (2015). The Neurofeedback Book: An Introduction to Basic Concepts in Applied Psychophysiology. (2nd ed.). Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.

(4) Fisher, Sebern F. (2014). Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain. First Edition. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc

(5) Gapen, M., van der Kolk, B.A., Hamlin, E. et al. (2016). A Pilot Study of Neurofeedback for Chronic PTSD. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 41, 251–261

(6) van der Kolk BA, Hodgdon H, Gapen M, Musicaro R, Suvak MK, et al. (2016). A Randomized Controlled Study of Neurofeedback for Chronic PTSD. PLOS ONE 11(12):e0166752

(7) Hammond, D. Corydon, Novian, D. Allen. The ISNR Comprehensive Bibliography of Neurofeedback Research

(8) Schummer, G. J., & Sguigna, T. (2024). A critical review of: Double-blind placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of neurofeedback for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with 13-month follow-up. NeuroRegulation, 11(1), 92–110. https://doi.org/10.15540
/nr.11.1.92

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About Me

I'm a Bay Area native who has practiced as a licensed psychologist since 1995.

I have a B.A. in Psychology from UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, Berkeley/Alameda (now Alliant University).

Having worked with adults and children in hospitals, community clinics, and in private practice, I've come to understand people as embodied beings.

All that we experience is in and through our bodies. The language of the body and mind is in electrochemical impulses. Loving connection, agency, satisfying work, comfort with and in our bodies, the ability to live according to our values instead of being driven by fear- or shame-riddled impulses -- all of it can be understood in that language which we are just now learning how to decipher. Even the capacity for spiritual development is mediated by those electrochemical impulses.

While medication is necessary and even life-saving for some, its chemical targets are often too general, not specific enough. Cognitive behavioral therapies and mindfulness based therapies (ACT, DBT) have been enormously helpful with many conditions, and are supported by research as evidence-based treatments. Those psychotherapies work with the mind (where to focus one's attention and intentions; what to DO differently in order to feel differently; examining thoughts that sustain suffering and cultivating thoughts that enhance functioning). However,

My clients who carry the imprint of trauma in their brains and bodies taught me that it's essential to work with the brain and the body more directly.

Our core survival-focused structures (the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus and hypothalamus) don't respond well to verbal reasoning. Our prefrontal cortex responds very well to spoken language but that responsiveness can be overridden by a fear center that is on fire.

I first learned how to help people speak to the fear center with EMDR which joins spoken language with bilateral stimulation to the body. It has been a hugely transformative therapy for many people. Still, for some, a bedrock fear persists in the brain and body.

I was encouraged to learn neurofeedback as I understood the possibilities of conversing with the brain even more directly through the language of electrical frequency.

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Trauma Informed Focus

Neurofeedback, also known as EEG biofeedback, has been developed to address many conditions and goals. With instruction and mentorship affiliated with the Trauma Research Foundation (traumaresearchfoundation.org), I have been trained in neurofeedback specifically to meet the needs of people with trauma ranging from acute PTSD to pervasive, chronic, complex challenges associated with childhood abuse, neglect, bullying, or other experiences that create fear, shame, emotional reactivity, body discomfort, and cognitive/learning disruption.
I have ongoing consultations with mentors who are certified by the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (BCIA).

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