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Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by the development of maladaptive symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor. Many combat veterans, rape victims, abused children, and serious accident survivors develop PTSD. PTSD generally includes some form of a persistent re-experience of the traumatic event; attempts to avoid certain things which ‘trigger’ the re-experiencing of the trauma; emotional numbing; and, chronic over-arousal or hyper-vigilance. PTSD causes significant distress and can severely disrupt the course of one’s life if it is left untreated. Many PTSD sufferers will experience depression as a result of their symptoms; and, it is not uncommon for PTSD sufferers to attempt to “self medicate” or “self soothe” their symptoms with pain killers, street drugs, alcohol, or some other form of compulsive behavior. Unfortunately these attempts to correct the disorder only make it worse.
PTSD can be understood as the result of the brain’s inability to process the memory of trauma due to: a) extreme over arousal; b) the inability to reconcile the trauma with one’s beliefs about the world; and, c) the association of sensory cues to the trauma which constantly trigger its re-experience. Neurofeedback training has been shown to have a profound effect on the symptoms of PTSD by Peniston, Marrinan, Deming, & Kulkosky, (1995) and other researchers. Neurofeedback training allows the brain to process unresolved trauma by a combination of: re-normalizing the brain’s arousal levels, retraining the neural circuitry which has been affected by the trauma, and generally exercising the brain back to a healthy state of resilience and flexibility. In the process of Neurofeedback training, the chronic over-arousal, and other symptoms associated with PTSD are all significantly reduced or eliminated as the brain learns to restabilize and harmonize itself again.
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