My Journey Into LENS Neurofeedback

My Journey Into LENS Neurofeedback

In December of ’09 I began investigating LENS (Low Energy Nerve Stimulation) Neurofeedback by going to LA to shadow my friend, Dr David Dubin. He has been working with neurofeedback for over four years, and LENS, specifically, for the past two. His enthusiasm and stories of dramatic and fast results in treating patient with significant problems piqued my curiosity. And so, my journey into LENS began.

I followed-up my first trip with a second. Between trips I read two books, The Healing Power of Neurofeedback and The Symphony in the Brain. I also downloaded and read everything I could find on LENS. The more I read the more intrigued I became. I recall saying aloud; ‘If half of this is true, it is incredible.” The results far surpasses any medical, psychiatric, psychological and alternative treatments for conditions that are difficult to treat at best, and often remain refractory to all care; all, without drugs and barely with any active participation on the part of the patient.

How could that be?

On both trips I interviewed Dr Dubin’s patients. It was hard to believe, but 100% reported positive improvement in a very short time with problems that had been longstanding and resistant to a whole spectrum of lifetime therapies. I also interviewed two psychotherapists who referred patients for LENS. One even caught herself saying; “I guess I could say that I lost a long-term patient to David, as he got better.”

So, here I am in LA to begin my training, with Len Ochs, PhD himself (the creator of the technology) to become a certified LENS Neurofeedback practitioner. I really could not be more excited about the possibilities I will have to help people improve their lives by reclaiming their health.

This seems like a natural next step for me as my interest and reading, for the past 2-3 years has been focused primarily on the brain. And, while I am in awe of the human body as a whole, the brain is, perhaps, the most wonderful and extraordinary achievement of evolution.

While it is astonishing and fascinating for instance, that the stomach specializes in digestion and the lungs in oxygen exchange, the mechanisms are easily understood in terms of anatomy and physiology. The brain, on the other hand, composed of over 100 billion neurons with trillions and trillions of connections is far from easily understood, It is essentially ‘a three pound gelatinous hunk of thinking, conscious, loving, dreaming meat,’ the source of our humanness.

The brain undergoes a miraculous embryological development in only 9 months to a level of structural and physiological complexity that boggles the mind. Combined with its role in basal survival mechanisms, its capacity for limitless conscious and sub-conscious interpretations of its interactions with the environment and other beings, and its vulnerability to injury, it is nothing less than amazing that we’re not all dysfunctional. Perhaps we are, but to varying degrees.

As such, we can all benefit from LENS.