Episode 35 Therapist's Integrative Tools: Neurofeedback and Biofeedback, with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge

Are you interested in becoming certified in and providing biofeedback in your practice? What are the differences between neurofeedback and biofeedback? How do these integrative tools provide treatments to clients that are both science-backed and holistic?

MEET DR. ROSEANN CAPANNA-HODGE

Dr. Roseann is a mental health trailblazer, founder of The Global Institute of Children's Mental Health, and Dr. Roseann, LLC, which is, "Changing the way we view and treat children's mental health". She is known for brain-based solutions for struggling kids and her work has helped thousands reverse the most challenging conditions, such as ADHD, anxiety, mood, autism, learning disability, Lyme, and PANS/PANDAS using PROVEN holistic therapies such as neurofeedback, biofeedback, and psychotherapy.

She is the author of the first-ever book on teletherapy activities for child and adolescent therapists, "Teletherapy Toolkit" and "It's Gonna be OK!" She gives parents step-by-step solutions for their struggling kids with her books and remote neurofeedback program. A media personality, she is often featured on dozens of media outlets: Fox, CBS, NBC, PARENTS, and New York Times.

Visit her personal website and childrensmentalhealth.com.

Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Pinterest.

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IN THIS PODCAST:

• Holistic treatment
• Biofeedback and neurofeedback
• Becoming certified

Holistic treatment

Holistic strategies do not go against or challenge other medical approaches to wellness, recovery, and healing. Clients do not have to pick one or the other. You can work with a combination of different approaches to wellness without thinking that you must "pick a side".

The neuroscience behind changing behavior is to regulate the nervous system first, then come in with new learning. When we try to separate those [by saying] "oh, you only need to do meds" or "oh, you only need to do counseling" when the person is in full limbic activation … and that's not how the brain works. (Dr. Roseann Cappana-Hodge)

Culturally people think that taking a pill or going to counseling is going to resolve the issue in full. However, full treatment often requires a set of different strategies, depending on the severity of the issue.

Your brain struggles to learn when it has shut down due to illness, stress, or unresolved trauma. Taking a pill may mask symptoms but it will not resolve the problem.

This is why holistic treatment can be life-changing for some people because it combines physical wellness with mental and emotional wellness for an integrated approach to recovery.

Biofeedback and neurofeedback Biofeedback is, through conscious control, learning how to regulate what we call our autonomic nervous system, and neurofeedback is subconscious control. (Dr. Roseann Cappana-Hodge)

With biofeedback, you are using your brain to think about regulating your breath, heart rate, muscle tension.

The combination of synchronizing and deepening the breath to calm the heart rate is a popular therapeutic exercise in soothing the autonomic nervous system, which is the body's stress manager.

The goal is to learn how to move from an activated autonomic nervous system state into a parasympathetic nervous system state: moving from stressed and anxious to calm and present.

On the other hand, neurofeedback uses technology at a more subconscious level.

With neurofeedback you're hooked to a computer and you're going to get feedback every time your brain produces a healthy combination of brain waves. Your subconscious brain … in two to three seconds of getting reinforcement your subconscious brain … instantaneously starts producing that healthy combination of brainwaves. (Dr. Roseann Cappana-Hodge)

Through receiving reinforcement for producing healthy brain waves, the brain will begin to change how it works. These tools help people to get out of being only within their thoughts and back into their body sensations, which are running the show.

Becoming certified

Biofeedback training is shorter, more affordable, and something that you can do on your own without guidance from a mentor. Go to the website https://www.bcia.org/ for more information.

Neurofeedback training, however, is more extensive, expensive, and time-intensive. You are required and encouraged to work with a mentor to become fully certified.

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