Posted by Spector on July 12, 2005, at 23:50:33
In reply to Re: Neurofeedback for severe depression?, posted by a good friend on June 16, 2005, at 2:55:09
> Oh, ok. If it's the best option, then it's the best option. And you are correct in that I have not seen the latest studies or stats on this technique.
> Absolutely it could help you! It's very much like Hemisync (Monroe Institute) or Sudarshan Kriya (www.artofliving.org), in that it whips the brain back into shape through regaining balance between the Alpha, Beta, Theta, and Delta waves associated with various brain states.
> Hemisynce does this through the auditory channel, Neurofeedback does this mainly through visual (using videogames), and Kriya breathing does this through rhythmic breath. Go ahead and check out the studies done with depression and Sudarshan Kriya before you make a final choice. There have been a bunch of clinical studies that show fantastic results. It is a VERY powerful technique.
> I wish you the very best. Keep going. Look at every option. You will get better.
Hi. Haven't answered sooner because for a while when I was coming to this site it would freeze up my whole computer and I'd have to restart and wasn't able to even get to read your response. But tonight it seems ok.Did not look into the other techniques you talk about, though I probably will now. My mom and I did do as much research as we could on neurofeedback for depression before I began which I did a few weeks ago. We spoke to a bunch of practioners and also to a man named Cory Hammond.
Cory Hammond is a research psychologist at the University of Utah who has done more work with neurofeedback and depression than anyone else in the country as far as I can find. He's had what looks like impressive success. He's so far done only case study work -- no controled studies yet -- but he says that he is seeing 75-80% significant improvment in the people he is working on. When my mom asked what he meant by significant improvment, he did not give any more numbers, but said that in many many cases he was seeing complete remission and that in tracking those people for about 3 years he has seen almost no remission. He believes that neurofeedback, when it works, alters the brain in a way that not only gets it out of a current depression, but greatly reduces one's susceptibility to future depressions. I have no idea if this is true or not, but if it is, that is huge.
He also said something that we did not hear from practitioners. He said that with depression he would continue for 20-25 sessions before giving up because of no response. Of course, it would be unusual to get a response that late, but he has obviously seen it go that way. Everyone else we spoke to said you should see the beginning of something somewhere between 5 to 12 sessions. But that was for neurofeedback in general. With a severe depression it will tend to take longer. Unfortunately.
I have had nine sessions as of today. No change yet. Very difficult, the desperate hope, the terror that it won't work, the unfathomableness of going on like this.
But I very much hope to be able to report good news to you and others soon. I hope it more than anything ever in my life. I want to come back to life so badly I could bite my own flesh off. Literally. Almost. And I want to be able to finally tell people here on this site what worked for me. Finally. Today is 2 years 8 months and 12 days of unrelentingly severe depression with crippling terror that has not for a moment let me forget that there is hell right here on this earth.
Thank you,
Nomi Spector
poster:Spector
thread:512397
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050612/msgs/526984.html