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Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain
Working with the circuitry of the brain to restore emotional health and well-being. Neurofeedback, a type of "brain training" that allows us to see and change the patterns of our brain, has existed for over 40 years with applications as wide-ranging as the treatment of epilepsy, migraines, and chronic pain to performance enhancement in sports. Today, leading brain researchers and clinicians, interested in what the brain can tell us about mental health and well being, are also taking notice. Indeed, the brain's circuitry―its very frequencies and rhythmic oscillations―reveals much about its role in our emotional stability and resilience. Neurofeedback allows clinicians to guide their, clients as they learn to transform brain-wave patterns, providing a new window into how we view and treat mental illness. In this cutting-edge book, experienced clinician Sebern Fisher keenly demonstrates neurofeedback’s profound ability to help treat one of the most intractable mental health concerns of our severe childhood abuse, neglect, or abandonment, otherwise known as developmental trauma. When an attachment rupture occurs between a child and her or his primary caregiver, a tangle of complicated symptoms can set severe emotional dysregulation, chronic dissociation, self-destructive behaviors, social isolation, rage, and fear. Until now, few reliable therapies existed to combat developmental trauma. But as the author so eloquently presents in this book, by focusing on a client's brain-wave patterns and "training" them to operate at different frequencies, the rhythms of the brain, body, and mind are normalized, attention stabilizes, fear subsides, and, with persistent, dedicated training, regulation sets in. A mix of fundamental theory and nuts-and-bolts practice, the book delivers a carefully articulated and accessible look at the mind and brain in developmental trauma, what a “trauma identity” looks like, and how neurofeedback can be used to retrain the brain, thereby fostering a healthier, more stable state of mind. Essential clinical skills are also fully covered, including how to introduce the idea of neurofeedback to clients, how to combine it with traditional psychotherapy, and how to perform assessments. In his foreword to the book, internationally recognized trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, MD, praises Fisher as “an immensely experienced neurofeedback practitioner [and] the right person to teach us how to integrate it into clinical practice.” Filled with illuminating client stories, powerful clinical insights, and plenty of clinical "how to," she accomplishes just that, offering readers a compelling look at exactly how this innovative model can be used to engage the brain to find peace and to heal. 8 pages of color illustrations
408 pages, Hardcover
First published January 27, 2014
125 people are currently reading
795 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 29, 2021
Very informative and insightful. However I believe that, as a psychotherapist, the author makes some very dangerous and untrue comments that can be perceived as true by any person that approaches this book without a critical eye. Especially for those who read the book because they want to understand their condition of CPTSD. Or for other psychotherapists that want to learn about this condition to help their clients. For example, in one passage at the beginning of the book, the author states that people that did not develop the ability to empathise because of their early trauma will likely never experience another person’s empathy for them. Considering that safe attachments and relationships are one of the prerequisites to be able to heal from developmental trauma, I find such statements highly unhelpful and damaging. Be wary.
January 9, 2016
Whew! What a wealth of information! Excellent!
Even if you're not interested in neurofeedback specifically (you will be by the end of the book, guaranteed), read this book if you're interested in understanding childhood development/abuse/neglect, developmental trauma, and/or about the brain.
Thorough enough that I could really grasp the concepts and let them sink in without being redundant.
Even if you're not interested in neurofeedback specifically (you will be by the end of the book, guaranteed), read this book if you're interested in understanding childhood development/abuse/neglect, developmental trauma, and/or about the brain.
Thorough enough that I could really grasp the concepts and let them sink in without being redundant.
January 10, 2025
I only understood the first part, which is basically a summary of the functions of the various parts of the brain and nervous system. Unfortunately, I am not able to understand the rest of the book.
Ho capito solo la prima parte, che é praticamente un riassunto delle funzioni delle varie parti del cervello e del sistema nervoso. Purtroppo non sono in grado di comprendere il resto del libro.
Ho capito solo la prima parte, che é praticamente un riassunto delle funzioni delle varie parti del cervello e del sistema nervoso. Purtroppo non sono in grado di comprendere il resto del libro.
October 4, 2022
I'm grateful for everything I learned.
July 22, 2025
Speechless... what an amazing bible kind of book for someone interested in not only Neurofeedback but developmental trauma. Loved how Sebern explains how many DMS diagnostics have been misdiagnosed and can be explained better by Developmental Trauma. My impression is that most people fear the word "trauma" but in fact it is just a word that explains what has happened and most importantly, how we perceive and save that experiences in our brains and how we respond to them. Trauma is not just a car crash, PTSD or sexual abuse, but so many more...
Again, what an amazing book.
Again, what an amazing book.
February 28, 2020
This book was not what I expected, but still, interesting studies about how to treat those with developmental trauma.
June 28, 2021
Life changing book filled with ah-ha moments. I need this in hard copy now.
August 9, 2023
Void of Self - motherless
Children not held in the minds of their mothers are lost, forgotten. Being held in the mind of the mother is the original holding environment, an experience that most of my patients have never had. Several adults with whom I have worked have described being in constant state of free fall, backwards through a black hole. They are themselves black holes and so, often, are their mothers.
In optimal or even good-enough circumstances, when a baby cries out, the cry alerts the mother to attend to the baby’s needs and comfort him. The two establish a rhythm of reciprocity, heartbeat to heartbeat, and they soothe one another’s distress. The mother of the child who will suffer developmental trauma perceives her child’s needs as assaults and pushes away. The child’s need is either ignored, subsumed, or punished. There is no alignment: no recognition, no soothing, no rocking, no singing, no rhythmic attunement. Without these sources of regulation and comfort, there is within the baby no sense of “mother/other” and no sense of “baby/self.”
Empathy and its absence is a hallmark issue for children and adults with histories of developmental trauma. Two kinds of problems arise: an impaired capacity to feel for the other and/or feeling for the other without end...It requires some recognition that the other has a mind and a life separate from yours, but, at the same time, very much like yours. This is what is called “theory of mind,” and it is routinely attenuated in those who have experienced developmental trauma. When there has been no mother to protect them, there is no representation, or only a distorted representation, of mothering in their psyches, their brains, and their bodies. Babies cannot survive without a mother, even when they appear to do just that, and motherlessness leaves them in a constant state of underlying or erupting terror. Neither their bodies nor their psyches experience the company, much less the comfort, of others. Their mandate is pure biology. It is to survive.
When the mother is incapable of regulating her baby—when she cannot attune herself to the emerging rhythms of her dependent, defenseless infant—her baby is at risk of never knowing that she exists. If we are to believe Schore’s argument, as I do, the development of a sense of self relies on the regulating, reliable, and felt presence of the other.
the infant’s cerebellum depends mostly on the security, consistency, and rhythmicity of his parent’s holding. When there is a history of significant neglect, the mother does not hold her infant with intentionality or a feeling of connection, when she holds him at all. (It is, unfortunately, increasingly common to see mothers holding their babies on their knees, or worse yet propped in infant seats, while relating entirely to their cell phones.) Many of my patients report no remembered or felt experience of being held or rocked— maternal activities that promote cerebellum development. Some have even told me that they feel an absence at the back of their heads where a loving hand should have cradled them. This is probably the first place in the brain that encodes the mother’s presence. If she were there, we would never forget her. Her presence is held in procedural memory. And so is her absence.
Fear, shame, and rage have chambers in the amygdala, and in this population they drive the sense of self–no self.
many patients find it nearly unbearable to be touched at all or even looked at, much less to return the gaze. Touch has been too threatening, too sexual, too injurious and even life-threatening to ever be trusted. In this situation, the therapist’s job is the rehabilitation of touch. Loving touch protects and enriches our lives.
Although these feelings can also cause problems in the therapy, they can be an early indication of a positive outcome. The therapist is called upon to recognize his feelings, whatever they are, so that he will act on them with consciousness. But if the therapist is unable to help the patient regulate her rage, fear, and shame, these affects will hijack the therapy. Ultimately, it won’t matter how much self-awareness the therapist has or even how much empathy he is able to maintain for his patient. If he is unable to help his patient regulate intense emotions, the patient’s dysregulation will triumph and the patient will lose, once again.
There is hope. It appears that although they have lost the mind’s template for self, other, and relationship, even those people who have been deeply deprived, neglected, and injured in childhood, maintain the circuitries in the brain that underwrite their essential humanness. As we will see, when we activate these underlying circuitries, we also activate the individual’s innate potential for relationship, and we ease the pain of history. This is a critically important hypothesis of this book: It suggests that when we reach this CNS, we will find this person.
Children not held in the minds of their mothers are lost, forgotten. Being held in the mind of the mother is the original holding environment, an experience that most of my patients have never had. Several adults with whom I have worked have described being in constant state of free fall, backwards through a black hole. They are themselves black holes and so, often, are their mothers.
In optimal or even good-enough circumstances, when a baby cries out, the cry alerts the mother to attend to the baby’s needs and comfort him. The two establish a rhythm of reciprocity, heartbeat to heartbeat, and they soothe one another’s distress. The mother of the child who will suffer developmental trauma perceives her child’s needs as assaults and pushes away. The child’s need is either ignored, subsumed, or punished. There is no alignment: no recognition, no soothing, no rocking, no singing, no rhythmic attunement. Without these sources of regulation and comfort, there is within the baby no sense of “mother/other” and no sense of “baby/self.”
Empathy and its absence is a hallmark issue for children and adults with histories of developmental trauma. Two kinds of problems arise: an impaired capacity to feel for the other and/or feeling for the other without end...It requires some recognition that the other has a mind and a life separate from yours, but, at the same time, very much like yours. This is what is called “theory of mind,” and it is routinely attenuated in those who have experienced developmental trauma. When there has been no mother to protect them, there is no representation, or only a distorted representation, of mothering in their psyches, their brains, and their bodies. Babies cannot survive without a mother, even when they appear to do just that, and motherlessness leaves them in a constant state of underlying or erupting terror. Neither their bodies nor their psyches experience the company, much less the comfort, of others. Their mandate is pure biology. It is to survive.
When the mother is incapable of regulating her baby—when she cannot attune herself to the emerging rhythms of her dependent, defenseless infant—her baby is at risk of never knowing that she exists. If we are to believe Schore’s argument, as I do, the development of a sense of self relies on the regulating, reliable, and felt presence of the other.
the infant’s cerebellum depends mostly on the security, consistency, and rhythmicity of his parent’s holding. When there is a history of significant neglect, the mother does not hold her infant with intentionality or a feeling of connection, when she holds him at all. (It is, unfortunately, increasingly common to see mothers holding their babies on their knees, or worse yet propped in infant seats, while relating entirely to their cell phones.) Many of my patients report no remembered or felt experience of being held or rocked— maternal activities that promote cerebellum development. Some have even told me that they feel an absence at the back of their heads where a loving hand should have cradled them. This is probably the first place in the brain that encodes the mother’s presence. If she were there, we would never forget her. Her presence is held in procedural memory. And so is her absence.
Fear, shame, and rage have chambers in the amygdala, and in this population they drive the sense of self–no self.
many patients find it nearly unbearable to be touched at all or even looked at, much less to return the gaze. Touch has been too threatening, too sexual, too injurious and even life-threatening to ever be trusted. In this situation, the therapist’s job is the rehabilitation of touch. Loving touch protects and enriches our lives.
Although these feelings can also cause problems in the therapy, they can be an early indication of a positive outcome. The therapist is called upon to recognize his feelings, whatever they are, so that he will act on them with consciousness. But if the therapist is unable to help the patient regulate her rage, fear, and shame, these affects will hijack the therapy. Ultimately, it won’t matter how much self-awareness the therapist has or even how much empathy he is able to maintain for his patient. If he is unable to help his patient regulate intense emotions, the patient’s dysregulation will triumph and the patient will lose, once again.
There is hope. It appears that although they have lost the mind’s template for self, other, and relationship, even those people who have been deeply deprived, neglected, and injured in childhood, maintain the circuitries in the brain that underwrite their essential humanness. As we will see, when we activate these underlying circuitries, we also activate the individual’s innate potential for relationship, and we ease the pain of history. This is a critically important hypothesis of this book: It suggests that when we reach this CNS, we will find this person.
February 13, 2023
I thought this book was ok. I'm not familiar with neurofeedback and wanted to learn more about it. I think the book, The Body Keeps the Score referenced this book.
The author says on page xxviii that the core problem for various issues such as PTSD, OCD, BPD, eating disorders, substance abuse, etc. is affect dysregulation which is an inability to manage your emotional states and that you’re unable to control feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger. The author lists the core assumptions of this book which are:
1. Neurofeedback changes the focus of our attention from the mind to the brain.
2. The brain organizes itself rhythmically in the frequency domain, and it is there that brain plasticity resides.
3. We can access these rhythms through a type of computerized biofeedback to the brain called neurofeedback.
4. Fear is the core emotion and the primary dysrhythmia in developmental trauma. Without addressing the brain's fear circuitry directly, developmental trauma remains highly resistant to treatment.
On page 250, the author shares a story which I thought was really interesting. Jaak Panksepp is a researcher using animal models to understand the influence of fear and who works primarily with rats raised in the lab. The young pups bond by engaging in what Panksepp calls "rough and tumble play" as part of their development. In an experiment, he introduced the slightest cue of fear such as a small piece of cat fur into their cage even though they've never seen a cat. The rats stopped playing and reportedly never played so freely again, even after the fur was gone and they were adults. This to me remind me of the story of Adam and Eve because they didn't know what sin was until they sinned and they lost their innocence. These rats never knew fear until a threat like cat fur was introduced to their environment.
The main problem I had with this book is that the author says starting on page 248 that "Transference in developmental trauma beings in the felt experience of 'no mother.'" She writes that motherlessness "is the lowest ring of hell for a baby and small child, creating a background fear of death or obliteration. ... it leaves these children feeling either insatiably hunger for this primary connection or so damaged that they can no longer feel the longing." She says they need to feel what a mother would offer such as comforting their fears, manage their anger, soothe shame, and other emotions that come up. She writes that "The transference is an expression of a biosocial truth: We need our parents, most intimately, our mothers."
I'm not really comfortable with that idea. What do we do if the mother dies during childbirth? Is the child doomed? To me what matters is you have a caretaker and someone that nurtures you. Someone that loves you and shows that you are important to them. That could be a father, grandparents, adopted parents, aunts/uncles, etc. The more the better. From this point on in the book, she references this idea and it just bugs me. I don't think it's backed by science. I know a lack of nurturance causes problems but I've never read anything that pins the failure due to a lack of a mother nurturing the child.
The last chapter was interesting as she was outlining the experience 3 women who used neurofeedback. There were ups and downs but overall it helped improve them. They all had various backgrounds and issues so I found that interesting to read. Everyone's brain is different so the author would have to adjust the brainwaves she was working on in the sessions. One woman had 90 sessions. The author emphasizes that neurofeedback requires a therapist who can help people process any traumatic memories that come up. I believe she used mainly delta, theta, and alpha brainwaves.
The author says on page xxviii that the core problem for various issues such as PTSD, OCD, BPD, eating disorders, substance abuse, etc. is affect dysregulation which is an inability to manage your emotional states and that you’re unable to control feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger. The author lists the core assumptions of this book which are:
1. Neurofeedback changes the focus of our attention from the mind to the brain.
2. The brain organizes itself rhythmically in the frequency domain, and it is there that brain plasticity resides.
3. We can access these rhythms through a type of computerized biofeedback to the brain called neurofeedback.
4. Fear is the core emotion and the primary dysrhythmia in developmental trauma. Without addressing the brain's fear circuitry directly, developmental trauma remains highly resistant to treatment.
On page 250, the author shares a story which I thought was really interesting. Jaak Panksepp is a researcher using animal models to understand the influence of fear and who works primarily with rats raised in the lab. The young pups bond by engaging in what Panksepp calls "rough and tumble play" as part of their development. In an experiment, he introduced the slightest cue of fear such as a small piece of cat fur into their cage even though they've never seen a cat. The rats stopped playing and reportedly never played so freely again, even after the fur was gone and they were adults. This to me remind me of the story of Adam and Eve because they didn't know what sin was until they sinned and they lost their innocence. These rats never knew fear until a threat like cat fur was introduced to their environment.
The main problem I had with this book is that the author says starting on page 248 that "Transference in developmental trauma beings in the felt experience of 'no mother.'" She writes that motherlessness "is the lowest ring of hell for a baby and small child, creating a background fear of death or obliteration. ... it leaves these children feeling either insatiably hunger for this primary connection or so damaged that they can no longer feel the longing." She says they need to feel what a mother would offer such as comforting their fears, manage their anger, soothe shame, and other emotions that come up. She writes that "The transference is an expression of a biosocial truth: We need our parents, most intimately, our mothers."
I'm not really comfortable with that idea. What do we do if the mother dies during childbirth? Is the child doomed? To me what matters is you have a caretaker and someone that nurtures you. Someone that loves you and shows that you are important to them. That could be a father, grandparents, adopted parents, aunts/uncles, etc. The more the better. From this point on in the book, she references this idea and it just bugs me. I don't think it's backed by science. I know a lack of nurturance causes problems but I've never read anything that pins the failure due to a lack of a mother nurturing the child.
The last chapter was interesting as she was outlining the experience 3 women who used neurofeedback. There were ups and downs but overall it helped improve them. They all had various backgrounds and issues so I found that interesting to read. Everyone's brain is different so the author would have to adjust the brainwaves she was working on in the sessions. One woman had 90 sessions. The author emphasizes that neurofeedback requires a therapist who can help people process any traumatic memories that come up. I believe she used mainly delta, theta, and alpha brainwaves.
March 14, 2023
Es la primera vez que leo un libro sobre este tema y me pareció fascinante. Me gustaron muchos los planteamientos sobre la naturaleza de los trastornos mentales y como podemos verlos como alteraciones en la regulación del sistema nervioso. El neurofeedback ayudaría a entrenar al cuerpo a regularse de nuevo u encontrrar nuevos puntos de equilibrio. Su razonamiento me pareció bastante plausible aunque aun no entendamos por qué el neurofeedback funciona. Me parece que es un tratamiento con mucho potencial y que podría complementarse muy bien con la psicoterapia.
Tiene un capítulo sobre identidad que me pareció muy pertinente y que es pieza clave para la sanación. Frecuentamente tomamos lo que pensamos y lo que sentimos como parte de nuestra identidad, cuanto más si viene acompañado con un diagnóstico psiquiátrico. En el proceso de entrenamiento del cerebro con neurofeedback, se pueden experimentar cambios repentinos en comportamientos, impulsos o disposiciones, que pueden cuestionar este sentido de identidad que a veces asumimos inmutable. Una confirmación del principio budista de que no somos los que sentimos y que no debemos identificarnos.
Tiene un capítulo sobre identidad que me pareció muy pertinente y que es pieza clave para la sanación. Frecuentamente tomamos lo que pensamos y lo que sentimos como parte de nuestra identidad, cuanto más si viene acompañado con un diagnóstico psiquiátrico. En el proceso de entrenamiento del cerebro con neurofeedback, se pueden experimentar cambios repentinos en comportamientos, impulsos o disposiciones, que pueden cuestionar este sentido de identidad que a veces asumimos inmutable. Una confirmación del principio budista de que no somos los que sentimos y que no debemos identificarnos.
June 27, 2023
I really wanted to like this book. I have worked both adults and youth with trauma and I was very intrigued about Neurofeedback and the benefits of this approach. I had to stop reading halfway through though. There are so many broad generalizations, information presented as fact without any research, and information that was also just wrong. I stopped reading because I didn't want to learn inaccurate information since I hope to learn this technique and add it to my skill set. I am happy to see that others have been able to take away from it, however, it made me nervous, very nervous.
June 19, 2025
Refreshing perspective on trauma based mental health. Highly recommend to those who have curiosity along their healing journey.
found the book on ebay for $25.
libby just got it after I placed a request!
happy healing babes
found the book on ebay for $25.
libby just got it after I placed a request!
happy healing babes
August 28, 2020
Insightful resource
Insightful, well researched and well presented. Provides useful overview of the state of the field. Recommend for anyone considering neurofeedback.
Insightful, well researched and well presented. Provides useful overview of the state of the field. Recommend for anyone considering neurofeedback.
September 17, 2021
Excellent book. A great introduction to Neurofeedback.
December 17, 2024
Must read for neurofeedback practitioners.
November 9, 2025
Very tedious. Took me forever to read. Great info but presented in a very boring fashion. Not exactly what I envisioned after reading The Body Keeps the Score
April 29, 2015
This is a great book for clinicians working with clients with chronic PTSD, developmental trauma or abuse/neglect histories. Sebern does a great job of describing the effects of developmental trauma on the brain. I was bummed to find that she's not a big supporter of QEEG-driven neurofeedback treatment planning, but she has tons of great information in this book.
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May 22, 2019This book is intended for clinicians who intend to use neurofeedback in their practice. As someone who is plans to be on the other end as a patient, I found the book very helpful in understanding my emotional and behavior patterns and in knowing what to expect from treatment. I highly recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews