By: Adrian Van Deusen
What are the benefits of learning in front of a mirror? We can ask the dancer, the actor, the barber, the trucker, and anyone who’s ever groomed their own face to describe the benefit of a mirror. Most anyone will tell you that practicing in front of a mirror, or any feedback device, provides benefit to not only the specific skill or choreography being learned, but as well as in other areas of life to apply grace, dexterity, and self-awareness where needed. This is because what we learn in front of the looking glass we internalize and can repeat in our day-to-day knowledge while no longer needing the feedback device.
So it also goes with Neurofeedback. We can ask any of the thousands of America’s children and adults who’ve used an “electronic mirror” to look inside their own body to answer this question—rephrased: “ What are the benefits of Neurofeedback?”
In our experience, from both testimonials and hard data gathered, those who have gone through a training regimen of Neurofeedback or Biofeedback have presented improvement on their initial symptoms, while also improvement in other areas of life, not the least of which is self-esteem and self-confidence.
How Neurofeedback Explains the Brain and Body Connection
Following on with the old sayings, “you don’t know what you don’t know” and “what you pay attention to grows” Mind and Motion Developmental Center makes known to our patients what they did not previously know—how their body and brain work. Using non-invasive Neurofeedback to sound, light, and electrical stimulation, we encourage our patients to pay attention to that minute body signal—now amplified on the big screen—in the form of a game or movie in which the patient controls.
Over time, and with practice, just like any choreography, facial expression, or other motor skill learned before the mirror, our patients steadily progress to points of seemingly “second nature” agency over their own attention, mood, information processing, impulses, and more.
Individualized Neurotherapy Services
Since our brain training programs are tailored to each individual’s brain function—as it correlates with their behavioral challenges, the games our patients play become very exact and pivotal challenges to their own central nervous system challenges. Each of us is different in how we reach our goals and in how we operate, yet we all operate within the same basic parameters. The Neurofeedback program at Mind and Motion Developmental Center is tailored to the individual’s way of operating, and often to the person’s individual functional challenges. Through this, we can provide a powerful, non-verbal, pleasant experience of personal dynamism. Since Neurofeedback’s level of intervention occurs at the Central Nervous System, which regulates all the other body’s systems, when growth is gained by our patients in their specific target areas, that growth in agency can be applied to any number of other basic life activities.
Our Neurofeedback therapy is entirely non-invasive. Our techniques serve only as a proverbial “mirror” before which our patients can practice a new cerebral “choreography”, but never send any signal directly into the person to induce any brain change. Furthermore, when our patients and their surrounding family members and their community begin to take note of the positive effects neurotherapy has in their lives, their self-esteem and confidence grow because the improvements are entirely to the patients’ own merits.
This is a sea change for persons who’ve often been indicated by their environment since a young age that they were somehow “broken”. With Neurofeedback, persons who have often been indicated by their environment since a young age as “broken” are offered an effective self-led method to “repair” themselves.
Brain Mapping and Neurotherapy Treatment for Attention Deficit Disorders, Emotional Dysregulation, & More
According to the 3rd edition of the regular scientific review published by the AAPB (Association for Applied Psychophysiology and BIofeedback)*, Neurofeedback has been cited as an effective and specific intervention for the treatment ADD and ADHD, Depression, sleep disorders, chronic headaches, and it has shown high degrees of efficacy in the treatment of ASD, chronic pain, Autonomic Dysregulation, Epilepsy, as well as other developmental and acquired chronic issues.
In addition to these specific issue resolutions, this post has sought to present a bit about how such gains can be made by such a simple feedback interface, as well as present how many other gains a person who trains his or her own brain and body can expect to develop over the course of neurotherapy. Though the technology and the brain science are complex by nature, what is simple is our general knowledge that the use of a mirror greatly increases the effectiveness of any skill we practice, and our Neurotherapy services offer skilled and experienced therapist guided treatments to create meaningful mirrors and goals for our patients.
Neurotherapy in Conjunction with Allied Health Services for More Productive Treatment
Lastly, but not at all least, is the short term benefit of a neurotherapy training session. For about a one to two hour period directly following a Neurofeedback training session, patients will feel a greater sense of clarity and attention. This can be used strategically in our Allied Health services to have a more productive therapy directly following brain training. Neurofeedback is thus a powerful catalyst and ally to the other services offered at Mind and Motion Developmental Centers. An ideal visit to our center begins with neurotherapy to prep the MIND, immediately followed by an Allied Health session to apply this preparation to the patient’s MOTION, behavior, and skill acquisition. Over time, an accumulated long term benefit is developed by our neurotherapy patients.
If you have been recommended for Neurotherapy after testing with Mind and Motion, have received a recommendation from others, or if you are interested in how Neurofeedback can benefit you or your child’s specific condition, contact a professional at Mind and Motion Developmental Center to schedule an appointment.
