Trauma and neuromodulation
Combined EMDR and neurofeedback therapy has been shown to be helpful in children with trauma.
The developmental impact of relational trauma is enormous.. The structure of the brain is developing during the first years of life, and any traumatic event affects all areas of its formation.
On the other hand, there is no greater trauma in childhood than experiencing abandonment .. The social brain of the neonate, the infant and the child will look for familiar signals that can provide calm to feel safe, to ensure a basic security that allows them to remain relaxed so that they can attend to the world without the perception of a constant threat. If this does not happen, the nervous system experiences chronic levels of overactivation or hypoactivation that are maintained even after an adequate care and attachment system is in place.
Neuromodulation in trauma cases
In the prologue of the book Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain by Sebern F. Fisher, Bessel A. Van der Kolk tells us how he met S. Fisher in 2007 at a conference on attachment and how he was confronted in that encounter with a new paradigm, a new way of understanding the mind, brain and body. He tells us how he interviewed patients treated with Neurofeedback at S. Fisher's center, and to what extent he was surprised by their statements. One of them collects and summarizes the evolutions described by those patients:
"Yes, I gradually became an attached person. When you are not afraid or confused, you can meet people in a different way".
Vitaliza's professionals have been intervening with neurofeedback since 1999. and we count on the enthusiasm of Bessel A. Van der Kolk, one of the leading trauma specialists, in assessing neurofeedback. This leads us to subscribe to his words: "Probably the biggest challenge in mental health is how we can help patients with severe affective regulation problems, such as those I interviewed in Sebern's office.
This is often the result of severe abuse and neglect during childhood-also known as developmental trauma-in which lack of synchronicity in early caregiver relationships leads to abnormal brain, mind and body rhythms." "In neurofeedback, we appear to encourage the brain to establish new oscillatory patterns that enhance its natural complexity and its inherent and necessary bias toward self-regulation."
At Vitaliza Psicología de la Salud, neurofeedback is part of our therapeutic intervention, to help and facilitate the regulation of the central nervous system.
Therapy on early abandonment trauma
Two years ago we started a research with children who have suffered early abandonment.We had been intervening with adopted children and their families for years, and we set out to investigate what we had observed at the clinical level.
One out of every four internationally adopted children between 8 and 12 years old in Spain presents school adaptation problems, while more than a quarter of the parents report externalized and internalized problems, as well as poor adaptive skills, which require specialized attention. When they reach adolescence, internationally adopted children are referred to mental health services more frequently than non-adopted children.
In our Vitaliza psychology office, we frequently meet with families with internationally adopted children who come to us for families with internationally adopted children who come to us for psychological support, especially before adolescence.especially at ages prior to adolescence. The evaluation and treatment of these cases requires an approach that takes into consideration both school adjustment difficulties and deficits in cognitive functions, as well as behavioral problems and the skills and abilities of the children and their families to cope with them.
The empirical evidence available on the efficacy of trauma-focused treatments in the child and adolescent population is limited and tends to focus on treating traumatic symptoms, while other psychological symptoms that very often derive from exposure to trauma and cause more disability tend to be relegated to the background.
Therefore, in Vitaliza we wanted to demonstrate empirically that neurofeedback training can be used as an emotional stabilizerWe have also shown that neurofeedback training, combined with other therapies such as eye movement reprocessing therapy or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), can improve emotional regulation and provide experiences of achievement and emotional connection.
Trauma and Neuromodulation Conference
Experienced Neurofeedback professional Sebern Fisher, with whom we will have the opportunity to learn at the Trauma and Neuromodulation Conferenceexpresses in his book Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Traumathat thanks to the training of the brain, we can alleviate the sequelae of abandonment in early childhood.
This study will be presented at the first Conference on Trauma and Neuromodulation, which will take place in Madrid from April 16 to 19 organized by the Spanish Society of biofeedback and neurofeedback, SEBINE. In these conferences we will present our research, which aimed to evaluate the emotional, cognitive and behavioral changes associated with the combined treatment of neurofeedback and EMDR in internationally adopted children from 8 to 11 years old..
This conference is an opportunity to learn how Neurofeedback works and what it can contribute to developmental trauma. The conference will count, as we have already said, with the presence of the recognized expert in trauma S. Fisher. In this space we will have the opportunity to share the results obtained after applying the combined treatment of neurofeedback and EMDR.
These results support the hypotheses proposedThe results support the hypotheses proposed, finding statistically significant results reported by both children and families in all the areas evaluated. As a relevant fact, it should be noted that the area in which the most evidence of improvement from different sources of information is concentrated is that of cognitive functioning. Parents observed statistically significant reductions in attention problems, somatic complaints, hyperactivity-impulsivity, anger and isolation. Children reported statistically significant improvements in family relationships and self-esteem.
This shows a greater adaptation to the various contexts, in which both parents and children see significant signs of improvement that seem to be mutually confirmatory. All this leads us to confirm that the combined intervention of neurofeedback training and EMDR improves emotional regulation in children with abandonment trauma, in addition to other cognitive areas. Quoting again the prestigious therapist Sebern Fisher "Just as emotional regulation is the first task of good parenting, it is also the first task of effective therapy".
Authors: Anabel de la Cruz, neuropsychologist. Cristina Cortés, psychologist specializing in trauma.
(Updated at Apr 14 / 2024)