Lindsay Clark is a believer.

So is Sherry Stewart.

Clark, 21, of Bonita Springs Fla., says her neurofeedback sessions have greatly reduced her anxiety and panic attacks.

“I was a basket case when I first came in here,” says Clark. “I’d feel claustrophobic and nauseous. I was afraid of going places, and I wasn’t doing well in school. Now I’m so much better. I’m not afraid to go out any more, and I made all A’s and a B on my report card.”

Stewart, of North Fort Myers, Fla., says the therapy, which changes brain wave activity, has greatly improved her two sons’ symptoms from attention-deficit disorder.

“It has definitely been amazing,” she says. “Before we started the neurofeedback, I was at my wit’s end. It’s really helped my sons to calm down and focus. There are no more temper tantrums, and my younger son really improved in school.”

Neurofeedback is used to train the brain to produce more desirable brain waves and fewer undesirable brain waves. The technology is still new but is emerging as a way to treat everything from attention-deficit disorder to migraines, anxiety, depression, head injuries and sleep disorders.

Brain behavior

Clark goes twice a week for neurofeedback treatments at the Biofeedback Center of Florida in Bonita Springs. During a recent visit, she sat patiently as JoAnn Blumenthal, a licensed mental health counselor who operates the center, attached electrodes to her earlobes and the top of her head. The electrodes don’t hurt and are attached with a paste.

The electrodes are connected to a computer, which measures brain wave activity with an electroencephalograph (EEG). The computer monitor displays different colored boxes, which represent different types of brain waves.

Blumenthal encouraged Clark to reduce the size of the blue box, which represented the brain waves she wanted to diminish, and to enlarge the size of the green box, which represented the brain waves she wanted to increase.

As Clark successfully changed the sizes of the boxes, an image on the screen of her flying through the Grand Canyon moved faster and faster. The computer also made a beeping noise as she successfully changed the size of the boxes, and thus her brain waves.

As the brain gets the feedback that it’s successfully changing brain waves, the new brain wave patterns become ingrained over time, says Siegfried Othmer of the EEG Institute in Los Angeles, which offers training courses in neurofeedback.

“It’s like behavior modification for the brain,” he says.

But how does a person will his brain to produce certain patterns? Clark says when she’s trying to reduce the size of the blue box, she repeats the word “blue” to herself over and over.

Unexplainable success

Othmer likens the therapy to learning how to ride a bike. When you start to fall, that is your feedback that you need to you correct your balance. With neurofeedback, moving faster through the Grand Canyon and the beeping of the computer indicate that you are successfully changing your brain activity. Over time, the repetition causes the brain wave to stay in place.

“You get auditory and visual rewards from the computer so that over time you are conditioning the brain,” Blumenthal says.

For most clients, it takes 20 to 40 sessions for the therapy to hold.

It isn’t cheap, either. Blumenthal charges $100 per session. And insurance reimbursement is spotty, as the procedure is still considered experimental.

In some cases, if the patient also is coming in for supplemental psychotherapy, insurance will cover it, she says.

When looking for someone to perform neurofeedback, the most important thing to assess is experience, Othmer says. You might also ask if the person is certified by the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America and a member in the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.

Clark can’t really explain how she changes the size of those boxes on the computer screen. All she knows it that afterwards she’s relaxed and in charge of her emotions.

“I still have a ways to go to achieve it on my own, but I’ve come a long way,” she says.