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You May Experience
Hypervigilance
Emotional Reactivity
Attachment Issues
Connected Brain Counseling has a team of therapists for trauma in Denver who are also trained in Neurofeedback to regulate your nervous system from symptoms of PTSD
Neurofeedback Therapy for PTSD and Trauma
qEEG Brain Mapping in Denver
for Trauma + PTSD
Did you know that trauma lives in your brain long after the traumatic event has occurred? qEEG Brain Mapping technology measures brainwave activity to see how trauma is affecting your brain, mood and overall mental health.
Trauma effects each individual, and therefore their brain, in vastly different ways. Some individuals shut down after trauma, finding patterns of dissociation and trouble focusing following them through their day to day lives.
Other brains react with more of a traditional "flight" response, where hyper-reactivity is present and defenses are up.
There is no "right" way to respond to trauma, but unless we measure brainwave activity we are simply guessing what a client needs most from a neurofeedback training program. qEEG Brain Mapping teaches both the client and clinician how to best treat their unique brainwave patterns and find resolve in the symptoms of trauma and PTSD that affect their day to day lives.
Neurofeedback Therapy for PTSD in Denver
Though it may sound counterintuitive, trauma can often be treated without talking about it. As Licensed Professional Counselors, our field thrives on verbal processing to move through mental health obstacles. Neurofeedback offers a different approach though by first regulating the nervous system, then offering clients the chance to process trauma from a more calm and aware space.
Neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback therapy for PTSD that helps regulate the nervous system and bring certain parts of the brain back "online" after they have experienced trauma. Locations such as your occipital lobe, frontal lobe, temporal lobe and amygdala hold patterns of trauma that are unique to your individual functioning. Whether you have a fight or flight response, your brain is going to react accordingly and create lasting patterns that neurofeedback can work through either before or during a counseling program.
Through a series of sessions, you and your neurofeedback clinician will help re-regulate your brain and give you relief from symptoms of PTSD. You can learn more about our process here.
Biofeedback for PTSD in Denver
Neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback that works on the brain rather than the body to regulate the nervous system. Biofeedback and neurofeedback are both effective forms of therapy for PTSD and symptoms of trauma. Learn more about the difference between Biofeedback and Neurofeedback here.
Why is it so hard to find the words to talk about trauma?
There are areas associated with language in the brain that trauma frequently "turns off". When you notice your nervous system activating, it is common to have a hard time finding words to express how you feel. As a team of licensed professional counselors, we understand that you may want to find the words to express how you feel when you are triggered though it may feel unreachable at times.
This is why our approach to counseling with trauma is both empathetic, slow and gentle. We cannot force ourselves into discussing the difficult things that have happened to us without feeling safe and unconditionally supported first.
Individual Therapy
for Emotional, Physical & Sexual Trauma
Maybe you can't see it, but you know it's there. Trauma has a unique ability of intertwining itself in your day to day life until it becomes your norm. If you are experiencing symptoms such as hypervigilance, emotional reactivity or issues with secure attachment - you may be living in a trauma response and not even know it.
How Do I Know if I Have Emotional Trauma?
Emotional trauma is experienced verbally and non verbally. This can look like a parent directly degrading you, such as stating "you look fat in that outfit". It can also be non-verbal, such as a parent giving you a look up and down in an outfit therefore leaving you to infer their feelings on a more internal level.
To some individuals, these types of statements are brushed off and not impactful. To others, a trauma response may occur. Maybe you become extra vigilant on your weight fluctuations and food consumption. Maybe you learn to only date people who reinforce the negative image you have of your body that was learned from your parents. Each trauma response is different, however it lives in your body on a cellular level and requires nervous system regulation to move through.
Counseling is one form of nervous system regulation, where your therapist makes a safe space for you to explore the nuanced and unique way emotional trauma is impacting your daily life. From there, your counseling will work from a variety of modalities including inner child work, narrative therapy, somatic therapy and more to help you understand how to co-regulate and re-regulate the nervous system that has felt scared, unsafe and fearful for many years.
Read the Research:
Neurofeedback for PTSD
A Randomized Controlled Study of Neurofeedback for Chronic PTSD
"Compared with the control group NF produced significant PTSD symptom improvement in individuals with chronic PTSD, as well as in affect regulation capacities."
Taken Directly from Myndlift's Summary of Research
"A recent systematic review and meta-analysis pooled data across four randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in PTSD and revealed a very large effect size for improvement in PTSD symptoms. The studies consistently favored neurofeedback in terms of symptom severity and the number of patients achieving remission (Steingrimsson et al., 2020).
Specifically, PTSD symptoms were reduced by 34-66% in the neurofeedback group but ranged from a reduction of 15% to an increase of 13% in the control groups."
"Neurofeedback has shown promise in alleviating overall PTSD symptoms, including these underlying neurobiological consequences. Successful results have been found among clients with PTSD who have not been responsive to prior treatment modalities."
"This randomized controlled study examined the effects of NFT on 37 children, aged 6-13 years with developmental trauma.
This pilot study demonstrated that 24 sessions of NFT significantly decreased PTSD symptoms, internalizing, externalizing, other behavioral and emotional symptoms, and significantly improved the executive functioning of children aged 6-13 years with severe histories of abuse and neglect who had not significantly benefited from any previous therapy.
NFT offers the possibility to improve learning, enhance self-efficacy, and develop better social relationships in this hitherto largely treatment-resistant population."
“Evidence with neurofeedback suggests that trauma-informed treatment should also be brain-informed treatment- and not just to know that the brain is an issue, but to work with it directly.”
“Trauma informed is finally getting its due and there is reference to the brain in most discussions. some even mention brain circuits. NF works directs, through feedback, to stabilize and regulate brain circuits.”
"T-test analysis of pre- and post-scores on the CBCL showed significant changes in the areas of externalizing problems, internalizing problems, social problems, aggressive behavior, thought problems, delinquent behavior, anxiety/depression, and attention problems (p < .05). TOVA omission error, commission error, and variability scores also improved significantly following neurofeedback training (p < .05). Some pre-treatment qEEG patterns common to this group of children were identified.
The CBCL and TOVA score improvements observed in this study indicate that neurofeedback is effective in reducing behavioral, emotional, social, and cognitive problems in children with histories of neglect and/or abuse."
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