This article discusses the use of neurofeedback for clients with depression.

Is Brain Neurofeedback Helpful for Reducing Depression?

For more information about Neurofeedback, go to http://www.NeurofeedbackBook.com Dr. Clare Albright is a psychologist (CA License PSY11660) and a Neurofeedback practitioner and can be reached at (949)454-0996

For the twenty-five years that I have been counseling in Orange County, CA, depression is the most frequent diagnosis that I see. My friends who are counselors tell me the same thing. As many as three percent of those diagnosed with clinical depression will commit suicide this year. In 1997, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death with 30,535 reported deaths by suicide. These facts clearly show that depression is not something to be treated lightly.

People of all ages, both male and female, who suffer from depression, have often been reluctant to seek help, fearing the stigma sometimes attached to the disorder. Recently, however, some well-known entertainment and media personalities, such as news anchor Hugh Downs, have come forward with their personal struggles with depression, hoping to encourage others to seek treatment.

Depression Needs a Cure, Not Cover Up

For years, doctors have been prescribing drugs like Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft as antidepressants, and while they help many people adapt and learn to cope with their depression they are not necessarily the answer. Many of these drugs cause serious side effects including weight gain and dizziness, and getting off them can be a nightmare, which often results in the symptoms of depression returning.

Another form of therapy that is still sometimes used, although no longer as popular as in previous decades, is electroconvulsive shock therapy, or ECT. Anyone who has seen the movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” will likely recall the intense scene in which Jack Nicholson’s character receives ECT. While ECT has been proven effective in some patients, the effects of this treatment are usually short-term, lasting no longer than three months in thirty percent of patients. ECT has some side effects as well, including memory loss and some signs of moderate confusion after treatment.

Enter neurofeedback. Those who opt for treatment using neurofeedback for depression are not only experiencing relief from their symptoms, but they are literally re-training their brain for long term relief and termination of those symptoms. And, of course, this is all done without side effects.
Retraining the Brain

Using the neurofeedback machine and the training given by the therapist, each patient learns to control and then retrain the way their brain works. Rather than acting to suppress the real cause of the symptoms, neurofeedback helps patients to retrain their brain for the long haul.

I’ve saved the best for last. Neurofeedback seems to work for depression, no matter how the person has become depressed. Meaning, whether their depression is the result of physical or emotional trauma; a genetic anomaly; or some other, perhaps unknown cause, many patients with depression respond very favorably to neurofeedback.

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