Always keep learning.  I always tell my family, always keep learning.  I started my journey at the University of Florida and found fascination with psychology and brain health.  That may have been back in the Stone Age however, Neurofeedback development was already in process.  

I began to explore trauma and pain through a series of unfortunate life events.  I realized that trauma was different.  It did not resolve by talking or cognitive therapy.  The brain holds trauma differently, as if it's life depends on it it, because it does.  A release of trauma sometimes requires an abreaction.  Often it's through the process of Alpha Theta training in neurofeedback.  We see nightmares become dreams, horror become tears, then wash away.   The memories still exist, they just fade.  They no longer carry the emotion attached, the triggers drop and become softer.  The amygdala is no longer in fight or flight mode. Our clients move on to live their lives.

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A few weeks ago, during a busy Tuesday at our Sarasota office, I went to our waiting room to see our next client.  I also saw a familiar face.  A young man who had changed and grown, but I certainly recognized.  He had come to me at 18 in pain and suffering, suicidal, self harming with more pain than he could manage.  His parents were distraught, he had been in the hospital many times, medicated with absolutely everything that could be tried and to therapy for many years.  He began Neurofeedback and over the next few months his brain changed.  He stopped seeking marijuana for an escape and began to think more clearly. He worked with his psychiatrist to drop his medications slowly and needed less effort to get out of bed and start his life.  Starting school and getting a better job became his focus.  He was in tears as updated me with his success story in the waiting room that day, "I was just driving by, Doc, and I needed to come tell you thanks for getting my life back for me.  I'll never stop thanking you."  

I don't feel like I need the thanks, but it sure does make it fun to go to work knowing that the next person needing and opportunity for change is coming through our doors.  I'm blessed to do this work and grateful for all of the opportunities, beautiful and bitter, that brought me to it.