Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain

I thought this book was great when I first read it, until I tried neurofeedback years later. It was a huge mistake. You should do neurofeedback if you want your brain permanently and irreversibly damaged. I feel the same way about EMDR, which I have also tried. I am not the same… only 33 and ruined my life with both of these modalities. If a therapist claims that either of these therapies would benefit anyone, RUN. FAST.

I bought this book based on having read "The Body Keeps the Score," which mentioned Sebern Fisher's work. I suffer from childhood developmental trauma and decided to get this as an intro to neurofeedback. I'm SO glad I did. It is an excellent guide that is written both for professionals who want to learn how to train patients, and for those of us who want to explore a new therapy option. I have hit a wall with talk therapy and neurofeedback seemed like something I was interested in exploring.Sebern thoroughly explains the process and the problems involved with treating developmental trauma disorders experienced in childhood. She takes an honest approach that basically says that neurofeedback is not a magic bullet, but proves that it is an exceptional way to treat those of us with these issues. It provides a lot of promise and proven results that she exhibits in the book. No doubt she has changed many lives, mine included. Because of this book I have made an appointment to begin my own neurofeedback therapy.If you are at all interested in a new form of therapy and have considered neurofeedack as an approach, I highly recommend this book to make your decision.

I've read this book non-stop like a fiction, then opened it again to reread. I am hugely impressed with science behind the neurofeedback process, especially the impact of the early experience of motherlessness on the right hemisphere development.Both the separation and the bridge between mind and brain are insightful: "I could feel a new reality that my brain was separable from my mind, and that my mind was inseparable from my brain". As a therapist, I am trained to put emphasis on the mind. At the same time I see how beautifully the process of therapy is unfolding for those clients who combine neurotherapy with psychotherapy, so now I have a better understanding of what is going on inside the brain, the role of amygdala. It is going to change my practice. Love the stories of three clients with so serious disorders. Love the gentleness of therapy provided by dr Fisher, and her patience. I thought I would skip the stories, that they are tedious, but they were like magnets.The light writing style made all the science easy to understand. Protocol selection is more art than science, so I prefer training synchrony as overarching brain-wave organizing principle. However I am trying now FPO2 on myself.The last section about four patterns (that which cannot repeat itself and dies, that which repeats without change, that which repeats itself but changes, and that unfolding unpredictably, evolving) resonates with me profoundly. It's life propagation principle, the principle of creation, and I love, absolutely love that our brains are capable of overcoming the developmental trauma and evolve like beautiful, complex entities, the way Life created them.

Sebern Fisher's writing embodies her message: the value of an integrated and well-regulated brain. She has attained the remarkable: a book that is at once informative and fascinating, scientific and warmly personal, academic and a page-turner for anyone interested in the subject. The clarity of her thinking, her ability to weave together strands of research, theory and practice and come up with a profoundly relevant tapestry, speaks to the coherence that neurofeedback is all about. What I found most unusual is the way she deftly bridges the divide between objectivity and personal point of view. Whereas my usual strategy for reading psychology is to jump around based on my interests and questions, relying heavily on the index, I found myself drawn into the narrative, which, due to her long-term and innovative quest for knowledge and her compassion for her patients, resonates on deeper levels than the purely academic. Her case histories are instructive, sometimes poignant, and gratefully, abbreviated to the point of relevance, thus avoiding the lengthy anecdotal chapters that bog down some books of its kind. I particularly appreciate her tolerance for (and willingness to confront) unanswered questions, which only adds gravitas to the research she provides. A seasoned expert in neurofeedback who is dedicated to the wellbeing of her clients, Ms. Fisher has written a landmark guide in this important and rapidly evolving field.

I am not a professional in the field of neurofeedback or psychology. But I have read most of the books available on neurofeedback and I strongly recommend this book as one of the 2 or 3 very best. Though the title might suggest that this book is aimed toward working with traumatized children, it has much to recommend it to the general reader. This book has one of the best introductions to the topic and it also has compelling case histories. The author is open minded and fair in her evaluations of various approaches to therapy. I am so glad I found this book!I have only one criticism, and it is more a criticism of the book designer than the author. The author frequently points forward or backward in her writing to a certain chapter - which she specifies by number rather than title of the chapter. However, the chapter numbers are not given in the header or footer of the pages, so the reader has to go all the way back to the table of contents to see where she is referring to. A simple inclusion of the chapter numbers along with the titles would make this book easier to read.

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This is a fantastic book, especially if work with children with histories of developmental trauma.

Wonderful book. As an art therapist there are always questions that emerge about what works and for whom and Sebern F Fisher seems to have found a good dose of the magic elixir. Well written, great insights, well balanced approach, and a training I'd like to take if I were 30 years younger.

Very good for developmental trauma

I found the book to provide a thorough coverage of the topic. I am not a neurofeedback technician but am considering incorporating this into my psychotherapy practice. Highly recommended.