Sarah R. Probst LPC-S, founder of Pneuma, explains Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback is a wonderful technology that accelerates healing in the brain. There are about 100 symptoms Neurofeedback improves in 20 to 30 sessions on average.

Neurofeedback is simply providing the brain a reflection of its own activity by capturing brain information, incorporating it into sound and visual stimulation, and showing it to the brain. As you listen to the music and watch the screen, your brain activity information is incorporated into the sound and visuals. Your brain is then able to recognize its own activity and make corrections. We have hundreds of people who have had significant improvements in anxiety, depression, panic attacks, sleep disorders, attention deficit issues and it even significantly improves digestion. Neurofeedback is truly a gift to the sometimes challenging world we live in.

A Quick Summary of what your EMDR experience might be

EMDR is an eight-step process.

We will start by listing the most profound experiences in your life that you feel have negatively shaped your belief system, and then we will begin to reprocess according to the 8-step protocol.

When we begin to target a memory, I will ask you “On a scale from 0 – 10, how disturbing is that memory?” Let’s say the memory is a 10. We will then reprocess the memory until you report that the emotional/physical disturbance is at a zero when you bring the memory to mind. Many clients call the process the “magic eraser” because they are astounded that these once extremely disturbing memories no longer cause such emotional distress.

It is impossible to list all of the benefits of reconstructing your belief system.

Believing truth and positive cognitions as opposed to lies and negative cognitions can produce changes that clients never thought possible. It is important to note that the process of EMDR can be very destabilizing while going through it, and is not without difficulty.

A strong support system is necessary as a client is going through the process. However, if a client is willing to make therapy a #1 priority and is really ready to confront the events in their life that shaped them in a negative way, EMDR can be one of the most rapid healing processes available.

Bi-Lateral Stimulation? What's that?

Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, she asks the client to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and then stimulates the right and left brain lobes rapidly. This stimulation can be administered by vibrating tappers in the palms of each hand, headphones with left and right sound pulses, a light bar with a left/right moving light, a therapists’ hands moving back and fourth while the client follows with his eyes, or a combination of these.

As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, “I survived it, and I am strong.” Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR therapy result not so much from clinician interpretation, but from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes. The net effect is that clients conclude EMDR therapy feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. The wounds they suffered during trauma have not just closed, they have transformed. As a natural outcome of the EMDR therapeutic process, the clients’ thoughts, feelings and behavior are all robust indicators of emotional health and resolution—all without speaking in detail or doing homework used in other therapies.