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I use Tapping, TRE® and EMDR at home, short term, to calm myself. Try them (links below), but don’t isolate. For real healing we need a good attachment-based psychotherapist and a support group. I also had a Grief Recovery partner. (Tapping diagram by AngelicJournies.com. left) Research these to see what’s right for you and ask your therapist:
Neurofeedback Works – Van der Kolk: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, MD, posted a webinar on neurofeedback 8-9-16 which changes the map. He saw how drawings by traumatized kids changed and developed after 40 weeks’ treatment and said, “I was blown away. Nothing I know of can do that.”
Neurofeedback: Healing the Fear-Driven Brain -Neurofeedback pioneer Sebern Fisher says it cured her own developmental infant trauma.
Find a Neurofeedback Practitioner Online:
–EEG Spectrum: http://www.esiaffiliatesforum.com/providers
–EEG Information Directory: http://directory.eeginfo.com/
Tapping, aka Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) – Incredibly helpful; takes a few tries to learn. Don’t tap alone if you have extreme trauma. Click the start of this paragraph for my May 2015 blogs on tapping.
Somatic Experiencing (body work) by Dr. Peter A. Levine, “Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body.” I got this for its audio CD and took it to my therapist to work under supervision. Levine discovered 35 years ago that wild animals recover from trauma by tremoring spasms of their body core and flailing of limbs, to complete the fight-flight they were in before they froze. Levine shows a National Geographic video of a polar bear shot with a tranquilizer dart. As the bear wakes, its body trembles intensely this way and its legs thrash, replicating running and biting motions it was making when shot. Finally it undergoes deep gasping; see minute 10-12 of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmJDkzDMllc This discharges tons of stress chemicals which otherwise get frozen in the body.
Our human thinking brain usually refuses to do this “reset.” It’s too fearful of the fierce shaking and natural aggression. That’s why we have trauma and wild animals don’t: old fight-flight stress chemicals stay frozen in our bodies. Levine created “Somatic Experiencing” body work to let us experience the reset motions we need, especially decades after trauma. My trauma therapist and I got a shock when I accessed this discharge shaking doing Levine’s CD exercises. My body went wild and released a ton of childhood trauma.
I dubbed it the “polar bear dance.” Really intense — don’t do it alone! Find a practitioner: http://sepractitioner.membergrove.com/index.php
Levine saw animals do this in Africa and was told by game wardens that they must do it after being chased or captured, and if they don’t, they die. Tremor response is used in shamanic cultures, but in most human cultures the thinking brain inhibits us and we brace up against the discharge, fearful of all that aggression it exhibits. So after traumatic events, most humans remain traumatized and frozen, often for life. That’s why one practitioner says in his video below: “only two kinds of mammals have forgotten how do to this life-saving tremoring: zoo animals and humans.”
EMDR – Eye Motion Desensitization and Reprocessing – Long-term use requires an EMDR therapist. New research shows EMDR may also help developmental trauma; check links in blog above. Find an EMDR Practitioner: http://www.emdria.org/search/custom.asp?id=2337
Trauma Release Exercises (TRE®)
Dr. David Berceli developed TRE® based on this wild animal tremoring, to help large groups of traumatized people in refugee camps, earthquakes, poverty, terrorism, war zones, any mass trauma. He discovered that the psoas muscle is key to body core tremoring. TRE® is a set of seven purely muscular exercises which induce “polar bear” tremors on a bodily basis, by exhausting the leg and other muscles that normally inhibit the psoas from tremoring. And then, if we’ve got trauma (who doesn’t?), tremor it will. Berceli describes the tremor reflex as a vital survival instinct: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0NooNBBro0
Peter Levine’s friend trauma expert Robert Scaer MD on TRE®: https://livingubuntu.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/dr-robert-scaer-thoughts-on-tension-trauma-releasing-exercises. On “how to,” see Matt Schwenteck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3x_ITdzKbI Doing these exercises for three weeks, I feel fantastic. Matt says “only two kinds of mammals have forgotten how do to this life-saving tremoring: zoo animals and humans.” Haven’t we all felt we’re in a zoo at times in our traumatized society?
Yoga: Here is Dr. van der Kolk’s 2009 interview on Yoga & PTSD. Yoga means “union with God,” and has many forms including sitting to meditate. Hatha Yoga is the form we know as yoga poses. It teaches us how to inhabit our bodies here, right now; that’s why it’s been used for thousands of years.
How to Meditate–Really! Dr. Tara Brach, “Basic Elements of Meditation Practice,” Pt 1 (2/11/2015): “The first class examines our attitude towards practice and gives guidance on posture, establishing an anchor for attention, and learning to concentrate and collect the mind – ‘coming back.’ / ” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVK1d9oz5g4&feature=autoshare] “Basic Elements of Meditation Practice,” Pt 2 (2/18/2015) “The second class focuses on the practice of mindfulness – ‘being here,’ and the component qualities of clear recognition and an allowing non-judgmental presence.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBcTat6UZUU&feature=autoshare
Holosync: Meditation with “Audio EMDR” enhancement. I made up the term “Audio EMDR;” this commercial audio tape for meditation creates an audio “beat” back and forth from ear to ear, stimulating both sides of the brain to better communicate. Sorry about all the hype on their website https://www.centerpointe.com/v2/ But in fact, if you find the “meat” of what Bill Harris discovered, it’s good stuff. He’s distilled a few millennia of yogic meditative wisdom into his blogs and found a way to use audio technology to help us reach that goal. I’ve used it for two years and it works well to calm a frightened brain and create a deeper meditative state.
Qi Gong Traditional Exercise: Authorities like Tara Brach put this at the top of their list; I’ve meant to try it, but haven’t yet. Then the chief trauma nurse at my hospital told me Qi Gong is so effective for surgery recovery that they hold free weekly classes for patients. I enjoyed practicing with Matthew Cohen’s YouTube sample above, so I bought his DVD “Qi Gong: Fire & Water.” But then I heard about TRE… so Qi Gong will have to wait a bit more while I see how TRE works.
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Tags: Fight-flight, Bessel van der Kolk, Emotional Freedom Technique, Adult Attachment Disorder, Meditation, Tapping, EMDR, EmWave, Developmental Trauma, Holosync,Yoga, Qi Gong, Brain Stem, Neurofeedback, Tara Brach, Grief Recovery Handbook, Trauma Release Exercise (TRE®)
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News blogs expand on my book Don’t Try This Alone: The Silent Epidemic of Attachment Disorder. Watch as my journey of recovery teaches me the hard way about Adult Attachment Disorder, Developmental Trauma, Attachment Theory, and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI).
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Medical Disclaimer: This website is for general information purposes only. It is simply my own research. Individuals should always see their health care provider or licensed psychotherapist before doing anything which they believe to be suggested or indicated herein. Any application of the material on this website is at the reader’s discretion and is the reader’s sole responsibility.
When doing tapping there doesn’t seem to be tremors or shivering to release the trauma. Does that mean it’s not necessary to heal?
People complain about therapies, therapists, family, etc. I’m not saying there aren’t problems. But in our search for healing, we find countless ways to distract, get out of tough spots, find problems with others, and so on. Healing is not unlike quitting smoking for good. Somehow, at some point, by whatever means, we flip a switch and smoking is no longer an option. If someone could bottle that special sauce that flips the switch and keeps it flipped, they would be trillionaires. Similarly with therapy, when we have flipped that switch, it’s almost secondary if the therapist is mediocre, or has flaws. Because we are basically driving the car and they are offering support and some directions. But we are taking risks, stepping out of our comfort zone, doing the daily exercises, journaling, checking in with the body, and so on. But the reality is that most people are window shopping. It needs to be a total lifestyle change and commitment. No easy or simple fixes.
It hurts to do this work. I totally agree we have to accept that and yes it’s a total lifestyle change; check out my book. Ouch. But it’s so worth it; I can’t believe how much better I feel afterward!
Is there someone who,like me, has killing pain in chest and spine (like someone is hammering a spike to nervous system) while doing Somatic Experiencing exercises? Feels heart attack, being ripped by knife and the whole spine area is starting to shift, getting really hot and then sweating, crying, screaming and you think you’re gonna die?
Why no one says that’s the bodily/neural problem of bad placement of bones and nerves which are squeezed and crushed and they need to go to the right place to get the feeling of calm? I believe in felt sensing and getting your nervous system, muscle system, bones back.
I read your book but I have to do this on my own. I am going to do this without ‘professional’ help. I won’t waste my time and money on those idiots.They’re missing the obvious.
In Poland we don’t have much SE practitioners. The only one in my city, after seeing me said that she never saw something like this. I had attacks near my parents, sister and grandmother, and I had attacks alone. The pain was the same. I don’t believe ‘professionals’ or anyone can help.
I am sorry for your pain, and yes, I had that pain! I am sorry your SE practitioner does not have enough experience. And of course your family can not help, they have no training or understanding.
But I as wrote and say constantly: Do NOT Try This Alone. ‘Alone’ magnifies the pain! Doing it alone is WHY you are having such huge pain.
Please stop! At least do no harm. Never do it alone!
You are re-traumatizing yourself and it’s quite harmful. We don’t do heart surgery on ourselves alone. I never did SE alone. I always did it with my doctor, as you read in my book. That is why I could walk through the pain–so now I don’t have it.
I learned TRE on my own and because I was getting stuck in one violent pattern of shaking, I eventually sought a TRE provider and we did a few sessions but could not unlock it. He said because of my chidlhood trauma, I need relational therapy and I was happy with that, because I felt attached to him so i thought we would have great result at the end. But it did not work. My attahcment was powerful and therefore a lot of stuff was acted up in the relationship, especially my freeze and avoidant response and he gave up, actually blaming me for interfering with the therapeutic relationship. So Not only TRE failed but the attachment therapy felt as well.
TRE shaking pattern is stuck because of very deep emotional blocks/fears, still active in the present moment. There is no shaking way around. Attachment is the key. I suspect I need lots of consistent gentle hugs and holding, “the inner baby” only acceptable remedy. Skin/touch therapy is my next try for now, hoping for attachment/transference. May try…
I am reading The Body Keeps the Score and find it repulsive and helpful by turns. The repulsive part is his compulsive need to force all kinds of horrific stories down the readers’ throat. The book is traumatizing, so beware.
All the same, there is much in it that is useful, and I have already applied EMDR at home, yes, alone, and it worked so well I am blown away. I could not follow the youtube vids, they were making me nauseous. But just doing the REM thing with my eyes when a bad memory surfaces, has helped a great deal — even as I am dealing with physical therapy for my broken arm incurred in an abusive situation. I really recommend it, big time.
Thank you for this website! 🙂
Have you looked into Internal Family Systems/Parts-based psychotherapy? Seems like a good option for attachment wounds and trauma. Less body-oriented, more focused on respectfully dealing with different parts of your psyche and gradually, steadily, gently healing emotional wounds: https://www.selfleadership.org/about-internal-family-systems.html I’m curious–have you had any long-term significant benefit with body-based work? Like you I’ve tried regular TRE/Yoga/Meditation, but I find them more temporary relaxation/coping tools rather than doing the deeper healing. In TRE for example I get the same shaking patterns repeating over and over, sometimes relaxing, but feels temporary, and no real “release” or progress. I’m eager to try Somatic Experiencing with a practitioner and see if I can move the needle. Thanks for the great post.
Short version of how I healed, especially my podcast, is in reply here: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/about/how-to/#comment-536 This other post addresses your questions in detail. Personally, I needed a lot of grief work first, to be able to feel at all. Then body work was hugely successful: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/featured-topics/healing-body-work/
Thank you for publishing this list. If only I could find one who provided any of these therapies in San Diego county. They sound far more promising than what I have dealt with so far. I am frustrated with the search and because I’ve had previous very bad experiences with talk therapists I’ve developed serious trust issues with the whole profession. I’ve left sessions wondering why I wasted my time or worse, feeling abused or terrified. I had one I did not like that my mother sent me to when I was a minor and when I refused to talk to her she got mad and threatened to have me locked up in a psych ward. The therapist told me that my mother could easily be convinced by her to do it. I score 8 on the ACE survey and could use a hand…
Yes, I had 2 talk therapists who almost killed me with “one size fits all” nonsense. But healing can’t be done only by “cognitive” talk; it’s physical and emotional. This has links to find San Diego “body work” practitioners: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/featured-topics/healing-body-work/ and also http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/resources/attachment-therapists-directory/
There are several neurofeedback practitioners in San Diego: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/neurofeedback/ca/san-diego?utm_source=PT_Psych_Today&utm_medium=House_Link&utm_campaign=PT_Specialty_FTherapist Good luck!
I love your synopsis of the top trauma therapies, and I love how talk therapy or traditional cognitive behavioral therapy is not on the list. I too, have found body-based, neurobiology-based, and energy-based therapies the most effective. I have started my practitioner certification course in Somatic Experiencing, and get to work with Peter Levine this coming weekend. I am super excited … mostly because I see how it works and I love to see the transformation in myself and others with these tools.
Please can you keep us posted here on what happens? Love for you to write a Guest Blog on your experience.
Kathy, you make a really important point about your “attachment therapist” and the importance of having an attuned, empathic relationship in the healing process. After all, attachment disorder is really about the loss of connection, and that, more than anything else, is what actually heals.The use of techniques and technology can help organize the MindBody at a higher level, but it’s really the relational piece that reweaves us back into the fabric of humanity. As a therapist I can say that not all therapists are skilled at attachment and many don’t know their own attachment history. I think it’s important to stress that good therapists are the most effective tools and resources. Be sure to ask therapists about how much personal work they’ve done when you interview them!
Grateful for your comment Dr. Weinhold
I love it! That was my response the first time I ever ‘melted’ enough to ask anyone for help… to weep. My wonderful attachment therapist says we weep from a combination of the relief that we’re safe now, and from the deep grief of the loss of not being safe as kids. He says these are good, productive tears and very healing. And very difficult to achieve–you are so brave!
I mentioned above that my brain moved a lot with the new BrainPaint protocols I got June 5. In fact, as I was doing my session with the directed protocols yesterday, I came to what I have to call an epiphany… Something has happened to me which feels weird, in fact feels absolutely crazy (compared to how I used to feel). I want to report it because it must be neurofeedback really helping me.
I’m often scared to take my dogs to the vet because the office is on a main highway, and the dogs jump out of the car as soon as a door is opened. I’ve been afraid one would jump out and get hit by a car. I have to put them in the back of the RAV4 when driving or I get a 60 or 45 lb dog in my lap, but I couldn’t get them out the back door due to trouble with the auto-lift gate.
Now yesterday while I was doing neurofeedback, for first time in my life it hit me: Hey, I could go inside the vet and simply ask a front desk person to help me so my dogs don’t jump out and get hurt. This sounds so stupid but it isn’t — it means for the first time in my life I considered asking another person for reasonable help!
That means believing people are supposed to help each other and that some people can be approached for help.
That’s a first step in trust. Amazing.
So I began to weep, really weep.
Let me explain why this feels so weird and crazy and amazing to me.
As many of us with a high score in Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), I have been horribly hurt by people. I’ve always felt that I want no part of mammalian attachment to people (you call that “fur”) — even if it is the only way to heal. Trusting people is horribly scary for me for reasons like this:
When I was 7 or 8, I was with my dad in the car about an hour away from our trailer. I never asked my dad for anything because he was incredibly mean. My dad smoked in the car with us kids inside. But on this winter day, I had a cold, and as he is smoking, I all of a sudden cannot breath. I am scared to death but I cannot breath. I timidly ask him “Dad could you please stop smoking? I cannot breathe.” His response was “If you don’t like it, I can drop you off here right now and you can walk home!” A very typical response. I don’t know how I managed to escape with my life in that small car for an hour as he puffed away while I was close to respiratory arrest… but I never forgot the incident or the horrible insensitivity.
From that time forward, I could not ask for anything reasonable – I could not ask for something reasonable to save my life.
To others, asking may seem like a no-brainer. But for me, tremendously hurt for years starting at a young age — to consider in the middle of today’s neurofeedback session that I could ask the vet for reasonable help — it made me weep.
And I’m going to try to no longer react immediately, even to such epiphanies, as I want to be more reflective going forward — another amazing plus of neurofeedback. But wow, I have experienced an amazing movement of my brain that I don’t think could have occurred any other way.
I may even be able to move to where attaching to people becomes okay.
Oh and as I had this epiphany – my dogs ate my dinner and I didn’t get mad – more progress…
Hi Kathy,
I haven’t posted on the BrainPaint neurofeedback system for a month for a few reasons.
Good reasons: I felt so much better due to neurofeedback that I got too busy! I’ve been out a lot, creating and attending meetings about the ACE Study, and I’m writing several articles.
I still feel neurofeedback benefiting me in daily activities, for example if I want to write something that made a point, I do it so that it’s not impulsive, and was worth reading. My new ability to do that is part of the neurofeedback.
Also I’ve begun working on key things I used procrastinate on like crazy, that’s also getting better with neurofeedback… I can feel a real improvement in my impulse control and affect regulation (my ability to regulate my emotions is growing nicely.)
But I also missed a lot of BrainPaint sessions. On one hand, we do need time for the neurofeedback changes to settle into our brain. But I got 2-3 weeks behind so let me note:
For anyone who decides to do home neurofeedback, please try to follow the BrainPaint policy to rate your goals and answer the questions after each session, and also be careful to keep up with the updates they issue to their computer system.
I got way behind on that because my cursor wasn’t working properly, I was blaming myself, so I missed a lot of sessions. Finally I called my BrainPaint home neurofeedback coach and she told me it wasn’t my fault — the program needed an update, so she updated it for me Friday [June 5].
Then we reviewed the updated BrainPaint protocol and she told me to stop trying to do everything on my own, please to call them for help. I promised to follow the directions and did so over the weekend. and — wow, did my brain move with the new protocols I discussed with her! More on that tomorrow…
Update: I find we need to give neurofeedback some time to settle into our brain, let the brain settle into new patterns. That’s why I’m not posting as much.
And also, I just don’t feel the need to reflectively respond to everything, and that means everything in general. For someone with trauma, that’s progress.
I have been able to work through my anxiety and though it seems strange, send the emails and make the telephone calls that I need to make but generally procrastinate on. I have been cleaning and organizing. Usually I am so disorganized I am not good at this.
Now I am less reactive. I am certain of it. When talking to others and they say something that would generally trigger me, I might still become triggered — but there is more of a second or two to contemplate first.
I stopped doing several hours of neurofeedback per day, though. I think that was making it very confusing for me to determine which of the protocols that I was using was helping most.
While I think generally it has all been effective, I like the general stabilizing non-linear protocol to do first.
I have done several more sessions of the “Alpha-Theta.” That is the type that has the capability to take us into the deep meditative state. I haven’t had anymore of those really emotional spells during the “Alpha-Theta,” but my dreams have been more colorful.
Actually last night I had the first dream in color and it was sad, but more positive. Usually my dreams have always about big mean things trying to kill me. So that is great, too.
I feel like I am better able to sit back, take in others’ point of view, back off from feeling like I have to do everything myself. I really feel this is great. I also attribute this to neurofeedback.
Talking to people I can do much better now, and have a great interactive conversation without feeling strange and out of place inside. This is all awesome to me.
And I am feeling like moving into other areas of healing like meditation which I am not good at because of a “way too busy mind that is always quadruple tasking”. I actually sat down and did about 15 minutes of sitting meditation yesterday and that was good.
So I think all in all this has been a very positive process for me.
I have also been taking others’ suggestions more, or at least listening and then making more informed decisions based on information from others. To me this is the start of trying to connect.
Also though I don’t do Facebook much, I have been posting more on Facebook. Before, when I see people I know, I was afraid to send a friend request — too afraid I’m a bad person, that person wouldn’t want to be my friend. But now, I have been taking chances, sending friend requests and guess what – people have been accepting. I just find this totally weird for me.
I don’t look out of control outside but now, I am starting to feel more competent instead of “out of control inside.” By that I mean that strange anxiety when you feel like you don’t belong, like you are an alien to a foreign species. But now I’m starting to feel I do belong more, I’m feeling more human.
Hello Tina
Thank you for warning: “Don’t Try This at Home” by yourself; get supervision (title of my book you mentioned). Folks: Tina is a highly-trained professional plus she’s been confronting deep trauma within for many years. BUT most people like me do NOT have her training or toughness. Yes let’s warn everyone: do this kind of deep deep healing under professional supervision if possible.
Please see my writeup of how I did healing body work — it emphasizes “do it with an attachment therapist — at http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/featured-topics/healing-body-work/
Dr. Peter Levine in “Healing Trauma,” his older book with CD which I used to heal, does say that if you can’t find a professional, try it with a friend present. We are MAMMALs, we need another mammal present to feel safe to do this stuff. My writeup above explains more.
My writeup also has Levine’s video of the polar bear shaking and trembling. And again, just like Tina: that was exactly what happened to me.
When I feel deep infant grief, it still happens pretty much every day in short bursts. Then I feel better.
Tina writes :”I wasn’t just thinking this poison was coming out of my body, but I was feeling it.”
AMEN, once we get into this “polar bear dance” as I call it, we are FEELING the tension being released from our body. It’s such a huge experience that our human thinking brain is the only mammal which fights it and refuses to feel it, which is why we humans get trauma, other mammals don’t.
It’s fantastic that BrainPaint can help our human brain allow this “polar bear dance” which Levine calls the trauma “re-set button.” But the bigger the trauma — the more overpowering is the polar bear release. So we need someone there!
I forgot to say that during the session my body was shaking — like really shaking. It reminded me of some of Peter Levine’s discussions and the video he has of the polar bear shaking. It was incredible. I wasn’t just thinking this poison was coming out of my body but I was feeling it. I was shaking worse than if I had been locked for several hours in a deep freezer…..
It really was amazing….
I would like people to know: It might not be good for everyone to do this alone, like the title of your book says.
I have been working on this for decades — so I have an ability to tolerate this intense experience.
I kind of think, unless someone is willing to take chances…. and is pretty strong (I didn’t know how strong I am) that person might get really shaken up. It would be good to have a standard therapist to discuss what is happening and to process those deeply brain stem-based emotions.. or have a group of healing friends…. some type of support…. would be helpful
I might be doing better if I had a therapist too… but I have so little confidence in that…. and I am in a rural area where everyone knows everyone so I don’t feel comfortable and especially with prior bad experiences with psychiatry I just am very reticent to that…..
However, many people considering this may really be helped but please try to do is with access to formal support.
Dear Tina,
It is so moving what you are writing. It’s incredible what developmental trauma does to injure our brains, and how that pain gets locked into our bodies — and decades later, it’s still there stuck in our bodies.
I am so sorry this is costing you such a huge emotional pain and effort to release all this pain.
Wow are you brave! I wish I could fly to Michigan just to give you a huge hug for being willing to go through all this to heal.
I feel so grateful and relieved that you are getting these releasing results–even though it is costing you so much. I just don’t want to minimize how brave you are and how much suffering you’re having to bear in order to get these results which I know from personal experience, unfortunately can only come by this route you are taking: being willing to walk through the pain.
Ouch, it hurts so much what you are doing. Thank you for having the courage.
I also want to validate you for something where I experienced the same thing:
When I started doing the Peter Levine “body work,” I had a similar experience where I could not stop sobbing during the session, or after, for hours on end. Sometimes hours became days on end.
I also had first to get in touch with a huge amount of repressed anger. When our survival is threatened, the brain stem takes over and anger is its main language. If it didn’t get angry, we’d die. So if we don’t feel through our anger and experience it to release it, we often can’t get at other emotions buried under it.
After I felt a vast fury at my mother for trying to kill me — one day suddenly I was sobbing “I love my mommy” and as with you, suddenly my anger was replaced by a huge sea of grief and loss for all the love lost in my childhood, avoidant marriage, etc.
Please know I am with you in this.
Kathy
It’s been about three weeks that I’ve been working with the BrainPaint desktop home neurofeedback machine. Tomorrow will be the 21st day, and here’s my update. I want to report as a user/patient, not as a doctor.
I’ve been doing about 1.5 – hrs of neurofeedback a day. That turned out to be a little too much for me as a beginner, so I gave myself a break the last two days.
After my second alpha/theta training on April 19th, I could not stop sobbing during the session, or after — for 4 hours straight. It was cathartic. (I am embarrassed to say this, but only due to shame based childhood programming imposed on me.)
I wasn’t re-traumatized and I let go of a lot of stuff. I saw that my mother did the best she could.
I could see myself letting go of the residual anger.
Then, the anger was replaced with a tremendous well of grief and loss. I realized that I was full of so much (and probably still am) grief over what could have been and how my life might have been different if this had not happened to me — how my mother’s life would have been different if she had been able to feel love from her children instead of being so stressed or whatever the cause was that she allowed the most horrific things to happen to her kids.
I thought about how my brother wouldn’t be psychotic if he hadn’t been hurt so much…. How he could know happiness instead of his constant fear…..
That is all I want to say for now except to note: so far, I think this is a powerful tool.
I did an “Alpha Theta” session on BrainPaint today and had a rather weird experience so here’s what happened:
I am stuck inside an ostrich shell. I am really stuck. I am little but grown. I am pushing on the shell. It doesn’t move and all around me is space …. lots of space.. me in a shell…
then I flash into the basement…. it is dark but there is a window a small window that is in the basement and I look outside trying to see the outside where it is light and bright and trees and leaves and I am stuck…
I don’t fight, I just flash back into the egg shell… then i think I cannot push this open… I will try to melt it away into infinity ..the infinity of equanimity ….. then it was done….
I suppose this is what we experience in the early seasons.
Thanks for this list.
Hi Leif,
Let our readers know which ones you use and what your experience is!
Kathy
I really appreciate your stressing that these techniques are for panic interventions when one get’s triggered and not for long-term healing.
Another resource I’m using is Brain-Tek. While the therapeutic version is done in a therapist’s office, the Mobile Solutions are available and many of my clients use them with great success. See http://www.BrainTekInstitute.com or access Mobile Solutions at http://www.eagleslandingchristiancounseling.com/page30.html
I’ve seen excellent results in calming the Lymbic system using BrainTek. I’ve also experienced it personally over the past 13 months. Love it! Really helpful for my anxiety when I get triggered. I hope this helps.
Denice
[R. Denice Colson, PhD, LPC, MAC, CPCS , is the author of “Stop Treating Symptoms and Start Resolving Trauma! Inside-Out Healing for Survivors of All Types.” ]
Thank you for posting these. I’m re-posting the free EFT book link on my StopSpanking Facebook site. Very helpful set of resources! Also, here is a link to an article I wrote addressing this topic as it relates to spanking and the One Love AP:
http://stopspanking.org/2014/12/15/how-hard-will-he-have-to-work/
Thank you again!
Robbyn
Robbyn Peters Bennett, MA, LPC
Child Mental Health Specialist, Portland, OR 97212
http://www.RobbynPetersBennett.org
Dear Robbyn,
Thank you, and that is a terrific article on spanking and child development, and also on the Adult Attachment Interview (my blog on the AAI is here: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/adult-attachment-interview-aai-mary-main/
Kathy
Wow Tina that is terrific! Makes me want to quit my other tools I’m doing but… oh well, I don’t want to jump all over the place…
More good results: After I last wrote you, I did a few more BrainPaint sessions throughout the day. Then last night I slept the best I have in months!
More background: There is another home system I found but it did not allow us to use different protocols for changes to be made to specifically treat the fear-driven Amygdala. So I chose BrainPaint which did. I also got it after reading three books on neurofeedback.
For the BrainPaint home system, I was sent a video showing me how to set up the system and then yesterday before the first session, I had an 1.5 hr tutorial. It is really very easy to set up and use. It was really good.
Also you get 45 minutes of assistance by phone every month you rent the system, and you can pay extra for more telephone help if you need it. I will be texting or calling my BrainPaint “assistant” on Friday as I will probably be ready to start some more specific protocols then.
I will keep this updated as I go. Thanks so much for hosting my experience here!
PS To your question, BrainPaint is not cheap but mental health and well-being? Priceless. The BrainPaint set I got has a minimum two months rental at $675 per month for shipping and a deposit; I initially paid $1,875. The deposit comes back when you send the rental back. The make and model I got is a desktop; it’s the file VideoBrainPaint-All-2012-4-28.mp4 on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3vQDyuh-OU&app=desktop
I’ve been excited for some time to do neurofeedback. I live too far from a provider so I just got my BrainPaint home neurofeedback system in the mail.
Sebern Fisher talks about the Pension-Kalkoski protocol and alpha theta training, a big part of what I need to do, after SMR stabilization and amygdala stabilization. Here’s a you tube video on it, I watched it many, many times: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3vQDyuh-OU&sns=em
Then, I did my first session today; it starts with a symptom checklist. I had lots of symptoms checked.
The protocol that caused me to choose, was initially to calm my right amygdala but because it looked like so many waves were out of whack, I did something called “non-linear on T3 and T4” (right and left temporal) to get the brain hemispheres in synch.
First session 7 minutes….. It was interesting.. Looking at a screen with fractal patterns and auditory inputs. After the first 7 minutes, I fell asleep for 2 hours. For me that is amazing because I don’t take naps and don’t sleep well… I feel relatively calm and just completed a second session for 14 minutes. I am now pretty tired.
I don’t know how this is going to go, but if it is okay with you, Kathy, I will chronicle it here for now. I have a strong feeling this process is going to get rid of my low self esteem, my rough edges and though I am really tired, I think this is going to really make some good changes. It already did something, as normally looking at a computer screen would never make me take a nap.
This sounds so promising, I’m excited for you.
Sure, go ahead and post all your responses and observations here!
I bet it will help a lot of people if you go ahead and tell it as it happens.
Please could you tell us the precise make, model and price of the particular BrainPaint set you are using?
I’m so jammed now with tapping, EMDR, yoga and meditation that I can’t add another thing, and I hate to drop a ‘practise’ when consistency is so important.
But if your results turn out as well as you expect, maybe I’ll drop tapping and get BrainPaint? I’m tired of my own developmental anxieties… — Kathy
Hi Cissy,
You are so welcome! Did you write a report on your Boston ACE Study press conference? If I missed it, please send URL…
By the way, having tears – floods of ’em – while looking another human right in the eye, is THE fastest way I’ve found to heal my traumatized brain stem. I had to force myself, it was SO humiliating, I hated doing it …for the first six months. But once I got the hang of it, one day I exclaimed, “Wow: People – The Magic Bandaid!” Because I felt that much relief.
But we can’t buy it for home use so I didn’t list it here.
“This is why I tell people that God put tear ducts in our eyes,” says therapist Dr. John Townsend. “Grief is a relational experience, and your pain has to be seen eye to eye with another person. Someone should be looking at us when we are crying, and we should be looking at him or her. Then we know that we are not alone, and that our tears are seen and heard.”
See http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/featured-topics/grief-recovery/
Kathy,
What a fabulous round up of resources and tips! I agree that healing WITH others is also crucial and when I want to do that in the privacy of alone, I do guided imagery. I can hear people talking and get the soothing audio and not be overstimulated. For me, this can sometimes allow tears I can’t allow with people around. Though, I think that’s the goal
This is great. Thanks for sharing!
Cissy
I was back-tracking an interesting search query that led someone to my blog and ran across this great web site – it was one of the Google search results. This has links to a lot of great resources if you’re dealing with attachment problems, so I wanted to share it. (I didn’t go beyond the page to which I am linking, but it looked as if the whole thing would make for good reading.)