The LA Times had a story recently on the growing use of (and debate surrounding) neurofeedback for a variety of psychological conditions (ADHD, OCD, anxiety, etc). Essentially, neurofeedback is a controversial treatment approach designed to help patients gain control over their brain activity. Generally, electrodes measuring brain activity are placed on the patient’s forehead while he watches a computer screen that provides some type of reward once he achieves the desired state. There have only been a handful of well done studies demonstrating any effectiveness, but proponents are continuing to study it as a possible alternative to psychotherapy and medication.
Neurofeedback has been used for decades in private clinics, but few well-controlled research studies have been done — giving it an unscientific reputation. That’s beginning to change. Researchers are now studying and refining the therapy — with promising results.
Techniques like neurofeedback are often reacted to by the scientific, medical, and psychological communities when there is little empirical evidence, and when the theory of how it works is questionable. It could be on the radar for people looking to try anything that might work, but it apparently has some distance to go before it gains wider acceptance by treatment professionals.
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5 Comments to
“The Neurofeedback Debate”
Of course it works. Just visit anyone who uses neurofeedback, and he will have success story after success story.
It is just a feedback technique, similar to the way we learn in daily life.
I was President of the Biofeedback Society of California several years ago. The old stigmas of Biofeedback being unscietific are now quite unfounded.
The research and clinical application of Biofeedback and Neurofeedback are directly using evidence based medicine scientific technique to guide it’s patients the latest in leading therapeutically and scientifically grounded treatment. In many cases much more effective than the standard medical model can offer.
James E. de Jarnette, Ph.D.
I find this kind of review to be typical of the double standards of the “medical” professions — in which psychology sometimes represents itself.
Many, if not most,currently used medications (as well as those pulled off the shelf at seemingly regular intervals) have little in the way of solid research for the multitude of applications for which they are used, vitually none for the combinations in which they are used, and questionable theories for why they “work”.
Using the rationale of the reviewer (who does not appear to have done any literature review of their own in many years, as noted by Dr. de Jarnette above), I would however agree that in terms of using any particular medication:
“It could be on the radar for people looking to try anything that might work, but it has a long way to go before it [should] gain wider acceptance by treatment professionals.”
Apologies for the rant, but I get so frustrated by the double standard…especially given the huge difference in risk between the “medical” and neurofeedback methods of intervention.
Dr. Karen Shue
Thanks to Dr. Shue for taking the words right out of my mouth. The ever-growing multitude of psychotropic medications have behind them millions of dollars in marketing but next to nothing in terms of substantive studies on risk (especially long-term) — and of course, no one is certain how they work, except that their use is associated with changing levels of various neurotransmitters.
Doil Montgomery was doing neurofeedback treatments — with success, I might add — at the Nova Southeastern University Biofeedback Program during the early 1990’s — over a decade ago. So this is hardly a new treatment, and even at that time, there was supportive research for its use.
Like with biofeedback or any psychotherapeutic technique, its effectiveness will be somewhat determined by the experience and training of the therapist — the more experienced, the better. Neurofeedback is a solid, non-drug intervention that should be considered anytime someone is looking treatment with one of the disorders it is used for.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 6 Dec 2006
