Who am I ? State, trait and brain wave training
After several months of neurofeedback, a young woman said, “I have never been more myself and never known less who I am.” Although her statement is exceptional, her experience is not. By its nature, neurofeedback affects the nature of those who train. In discussions of neurofeedback, we tend to focus on the alleviation of symptoms. This talk seeks to extend the discussion to the effects neurofeedback has not only on symptoms, but also over time, on personality and identity.
The proposal here is that frequencies in the brain underlie arousal, that arousal gives rise to state, that states practiced become traits, and that an accumulation of traits become who we think we are. As we address the frequencies at which the brain fires, we begin to affect the end point of this entire construction, the sense of self. This presentation will outline this process using clinical and personal vignette and discuss the implications for clinical work. The implications, however, extend far beyond the clinic. This intimate connection between how the brain fires and the identity we assume challenges the way we think about what it is to be human.
