Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—The Neurofeedback Remedy

Abstract

The application of neurofeedback to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in returning veterans is described herein and is illustrated with two case histories. Initially, frequency-based electroencephalogram training was employed to promote functional recovery, in the manner of the traditional sensorimotor rhythm/beta approach. An optimization procedure was employed in which the reinforcement frequency is tailored to the client on the basis of symptom response, with particular regard for the regulation of arousal. Low frequencies, down to .01 Hz, have been found especially useful in the remediation of post- traumatic stress disorder. This training was complemented with traditional alpha-theta work as pioneered at the Menninger Foundation and by Peniston. The objective here is experiential, because prior traumas typically are revisited in a nonforced, nontraumatic manner. The benign witnessing of traumas consolidates the experience of safety for which the prior training laid the groundwork. Collectively, this approach has been found to be much better tolerated than traditional exposure therapies. In addition, it is helpful in the shedding of substance dependencies that are common in treatment-resistant PTSD

Full text

Spring 2009  Biofeedback
24
Biofeedback
Volume 37, Issue 1, pp. 24–31
©Association for Applied Psychophysiology & Biofeedback
www.aapb.org
SPECIAL ISSUE
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—The Neurofeedback
Remedy
Siegfried Othmer, PhD, and Susan F. Othmer, BA
The EEG Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Keywords: post-traumatic stress disorder, neurofeedback, low frequency training, arousal regulation, attachment
The application of neurofeedback to post traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) in returning veterans is described
herein and is illustrated with two case histories. Initially,
frequency-based electroencephalogram training was
employed to promote functional recovery, in the manner
of the traditional sensorimotor rhythm/beta approach.
An optimization procedure was employed in which the
reinforcement frequency is tailored to the client on the
basis of symptom response, with particular regard for the
regulation of arousal. Low frequencies, down to .01 Hz, have
been found especially useful in the remediation of post-
traumatic stress disorder. This training was complemented
with traditional alpha-theta work as pioneered at the
Menninger Foundation and by Peniston. The objective here
is experiential, because prior traumas typically are revisited
in a nonforced, nontraumatic manner. The benign witnessing
of traumas consolidates the experience of safety for which
the prior training laid the groundwork. Collectively, this
approach has been found to be much better tolerated than
traditional exposure therapies. In addition, it is helpful in
the shedding of substance dependencies that are common in
treatment-resistant PTSD
Introduction
Neurofeedback protocols have continued to evolve in
clinical practice to cover domains of function that were not
originally envisioned in the application of sensorimotor
rhythm/beta (SMR/Beta) training to seizure management
and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The breadth
of applications is now such that our thinking with
respect to neurofeedback should not be organized around
specific clinical conditions at all. It may be argued that
neurofeedback impinges on entire regulatory systems, and
these now include not only the domain of cognitive and
executive function but of emotional control, autonomic
regulation, and interoception as well. This opens the door to
the remediation of conditions such as post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) that involve rather global dysregulations
in the “body-mind.”
The human regulatory regime can be modeled as a
network, quite irrespective of whether we are speaking of
the neural networks specifically. And if we impinge upon
the functional organization of our neural networks through
feedback, then the effects are communicated to the entire
regulatory network through both synaptic and nonsynaptic
interactions. Advantage is taken of the high level of functional
integration of our regulatory regime. Hence, neurofeedback
is a candidate approach even if matters concern primarily
autonomic dysregulations that, to date, have been the domain
of the standard peripheral biofeedback approaches. A choice
between them must be made on the basis of relative clinical
efficiency rather than of mere efficacy.
The most characteristic and troublesome symptom
of PTSD is that of reexperiencing, and this involves an
evocation of the original system response to the trauma in
all its particulars. By virtue of the salience of the original
trauma, the entire event is registered in the body-mind as
a unitary memory. (There is survival value in the trauma
being remembered permanently, so in that sense the system
is working as it should.) Subsequent recall of the event then
involves the whole memory, including not only the specific,
explicit “event memory” but also the accompanying implicit
“state memory” that is diffusely registered throughout
the body. With a concatenation of traumatic events, the
body-mind eventually accommodates to a perpetual state
of anticipating threat, at great cost to the person’s well-
being and functionality. Unsurprisingly, this state of
readiness typically defies therapeutic attempts to effect its
extinction because it is grounded in our most basic survival
mechanisms.
The remedy lies in giving the body-mind the visceral
experience of calmness to which it no longer has access,
and in reinforcing that state to the point where the body
can once again live there in the steady state. Cognitively
based methods don’t accomplish this task very well. A
psychophysiological approach is called for. Neurofeedback is
one such approach, and in the following we report on our
experience using this method.

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Models for Neurofeedback Intervention
Neurofeedback lends itself to this task for several reasons.
First of all, it is a ready means for shifting the arousal level
of the trainee in a controlled fashion. Second, in contrast to
biofeedback techniques, the control is bidirectional—one
can move the person up or down in arousal level arbitrarily.
Third, with neurofeedback one is operating in a much larger
variable space than is the case with peripheral biofeedback.
The whole frequency range of the electroencephalograph
(EEG) is available, as well as all scalp locations. This provides
the opportunity for both specificity in the pursuit of training
objectives and the fine-tuning of the particulars. That allows
the process to be implemented with a finesse that simply is
not available with other methods.
Inevitably, of course, the availability of a large variable
space has resulted in the proliferation of clinical methods
to exploit the new feedback possibilities that have opened
up. An attempt to categorize all of the major approaches has
just been published in a book chapter (S. Othmer, 2008).
For present purposes, however, a different classification is
appropriate. Broadly speaking, neurofeedback approaches
either target specific dysfunctions that are observable in the
EEG or they promote function more generally. In practice,
these disparate approaches are often combined.
These two basic approaches each have their relative
strengths. The specific targeting has its advantages for
conditions with a strong cortical representation, such as
specific learning disabilities. The more general mechanisms-
based targeting is appropriate for the deeper, more diffuse,
more thorough-going, and nonspecific dysregulations
that characterize many of the mental health issues that
have been hitherto intractable. PTSD falls in the latter
category.
In our application of mechanisms-based training, we
orient primarily to the person’s state of arousal. Reference
here is to tonic rather than phasic arousal, and even though
our immediate observations indicate arousal state, we
are really interested in trait arousal. The neurofeedback
challenge gently moves the person in level of arousal to
permit exploration of his or her “state space.” The immediate
objective is to find the person’s comfort zone, the point at
which the challenge of neurofeedback can be best tolerated
going forward. This comfort zone is highly individual,
and indexes for us the person’s intrinsic trait arousal level
(Othmer & Othmer, 2007).
The analogy to “still-point” training in movement
therapy may be helpful here. Feldenkrais (1949) found
that small excursions around the point of ease served to
reorganize the control of movement in a gentle and unforced
manner. What Feldenkrais accomplished externally we
are accomplishing in top-down fashion via the EEG. In
both instances, the exercise serves to improve regulatory
capacities more generally. Motor function is the observable
for Feldenkrais; arousal regulation is the observable for
us.
Arousal, as we use the term, can be thought of as a
composite of many specific activations, for example, cognitive
arousal; autonomic arousal and balance; excitability of our
sensory systems; set-point of motor system excitability; and
activation of the executive control system. The most basic
of all of these systems, and perhaps for that reason the most
obscure, is the state of our emotional ambient, related to our
intrinsic sense of safety in the world. The strongest inputs
to our brainstem arousal regulation mechanisms are from
the limbic system.
Systemic Approaches: Alert State Training
With every potent neurofeedback challenge we affect the
state of arousal in general, and by means of specific electrode
placements we can bias the training toward certain system
activations. In the case of PTSD, for example, we bias the
EEG feedback training toward the right hemisphere, which
is dominant for the organization of our affective domain.
Physical calming is achieved by targeting the right parietal
region; emotional calming and stability are targeted with
right prefrontal training. Other placements may be included
for other aspects of dysfunction. All right-side trainings
employ T4 as a common reference in bipolar montage, and all
left-side trainings employ T3 as a common reference. Overall
system stability is promoted with the interhemispheric
bipolar placement T3-T4.
The reward frequency is adjusted during the first session
to the state in which the person is maximally calm, alert,
and as euthymic as the nervous system is capable of being at
that moment. The fine-tuning is done on the basis of client
report on their own status. This approach is often referred to
as optimum reward frequency (ORF) training. The reward
frequency can be anywhere in the EEG frequency range
below nominally 45 Hz, but it tends to be very low in PTSD,
extending down to as low as .01 Hz. The use of rewards set
at such low frequencies is a relatively new emphasis in our
approach to neurofeedback, discussed in greater detail in S.
Othmer (2008).
At such low frequencies, one may well ask whether we
are still targeting the EEG or whether we are interacting
with peripheral physiology. Operationally, of course, it
does not matter. All that can be said at this point is that
the behavior we observe is on a complete continuum with
what we observe at higher EEG frequencies. In particular,
the narrowness of the optimum frequency range can be

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Spring 2009  Biofeedback
quite striking in both domains. A person who responds well
to .02 Hz reinforcement may respond less well to .04 Hz
and .01Hz. At higher frequencies, a person who responds
well to 14 Hz reinforcement may respond less well to 13.5
and 14.5 Hz. We therefore appear to be interacting with a
resonant system (which is how the EEG is organized) in both
domains. Additionally, a recent publication speaks of the EEG
rhythmicity being observable down to .01 Hz (Kelly, Uddin,
Biswall, Castellanos, & Milham, 2008).
A very practical issue arises of how one gives good
feedback on such low-frequency signals. The utility of the
low-frequency training actually was uncovered with the same
instrumentation that is used at higher reward frequencies.
In both cases, the client is only given information on short-
term changes in the EEG signal. The brain is biased in favor
of the detection of change, and thus to the highest frequency
components of the reward signal. In order to make the brain
sensitive to the slower components of the EEG, the higher
frequency components have to be masked. As in heart rate
variability training, attention focuses on the moment, but
ultimately, the entire low-frequency waveform is affected
by the experience.
Systemic Approaches: Deep State Training
The second phase of our approach to PTSD is essentially
the alpha-theta training pioneered at the Menninger
Foundation and first formally investigated for PTSD by
Eugene Peniston (Peniston & Kulkosky, 1999). In our
implementation we employ two-channel sum training
at P3 and P4 to promote global synchrony in the parietal
and occipital region. The nominal theta band is centered
on 7 Hz and the alpha band is centered on 10 Hz for most
individuals.
The principal objective here is experiential. Alpha and
theta synchrony moves the person to deactivated states
and promotes disengagement, particularly under the eyes-
closed conditions in which the session transpires. The
state silences the inner verbal censor and it expands the
dimensions of self-awareness. The state is experienced
nonlexically, that is, in terms of imagery. Trauma-related
imagery that arises in this context typically does so without
evoking the usual physiological response. The benign
experience of the trauma event essentially reprograms
the memory as a merely historical one. The success of this
strategy, as well as the relative absence of abreactions, is
attributable to the fact that the ground has been prepared
by the prior alert-state training to acclimate the nervous
system to living in calm states. The training program is
illustrated by the following two case histories.
Two Cases of PTSD
We are providing neurofeedback to veterans with PTSD at
no cost as part of our nationwide program of participating
neurotherapists, Homecoming for Veterans. In return,
some veterans are giving us the right to talk about their
cases in detail. One allowed his entire training experience
to be videotaped for the benefit of other neurofeedback
professionals. This case is presented briefly below in order to
illustrate the flow of the work.
Case One: “K.”
K. is a Canadian veteran of the Bosnian conflict. He had been
through 10 years of various conventional therapies for PTSD,
but in the course of these his deepest traumas could never
be touched. His wife initially discouraged his participation
in neurofeedback, fearing yet another disappointment.
The early history of this person disclosed that he was born
prematurely and spent the first 3 weeks in an incubator,
with possible implications for early attachment. Later in
life he experienced a concussion in an automobile accident,
which is likely to have been a psychological trauma as well
as a physical one. Both of these may have served as priming
events for the subsequent trauma formation.
The initial evaluation disclosed the following primary
symptoms: flashbacks, panic attacks, phobias, daily headaches,
hypervigilance, mood swings, anxiety and depression,
fatigue, anger, chronic body pain, tinnitus, bruxism, irritable
bowel, asthma, hand tremor, nail biting, poor memory and
concentration, and a tendency to bump into things while
walking. He complained of fitful sleep (3 hours at a time),
nightmares, and night sweats. He reported out-of-body
experiences. There was also a problem of binge drinking,
and K. exhibited a lack of appetite awareness. He scored
four standard deviations below norms on omission errors,
and two standard deviations below norms on variability of
reaction time. Medications included Remeron for depression;
Zopiclone for sleep; Clonazepam for anxiety; Flovent for
asthma; and Tramacet for pain. Ongoing therapies included
massage and chiropractic.
The burden of the first neurofeedback session is to
characterize the response of the nervous system and find the
optimal training conditions. K. came into the session with
a headache and with body tension in the back and hands.
He complained of back pain and fatigue. These symptoms
are used to judge the quality of the training. The initial
placement of T3-T4 is commonly used to establish the
optimum reward frequency. The first trial reward frequency
was 9.5 Hz. After 3 minutes K. reported reduced tension in
the jaw. His headache had moved and decreased in severity.

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He felt calmer and more awake. After 3 additional minutes
at 8.5 Hz his headache was mostly gone; his hands felt less
tense; and he felt more calm and relaxed. After 3 additional
minutes at 7.5 Hz, K. felt that back tension was reduced,
and he continued to feel more awake. After 3 minutes at 6.5
and 5.5 Hz the back was no longer tense, although it was
still sore. After 3 minutes at 4.5 Hz, K. felt some anxiety
in the chest and throat. This was possibly better after 3
minutes at 3.5 Hz and nearly gone after 3 minutes at 2.5
Hz. However, now K. complained of eyestrain. This was
reduced after 3 minutes at 1.5 Hz. After 3 minutes at 1
Hz, K. reported increased salivation, and after 3 minutes at
.5 Hz, then at .25 Hz, and then at .1 Hz, he felt positively
hungry. He had not eaten all day. The final training epoch
took place at .05 Hz, after which K. felt very relaxed, lighter
physically and mentally, and his eyes betrayed the hint of
a smile.
On the basis of this initial training experience, subsequent
training sessions focused on the very low frequency range.
Significant training milestones included the following: After
this first session he was able to go to the grocery store,
where he was previously troubled by spatial disorientation.
His headache did not return, but he came to the second
session with neck pain. This was eliminated with 10 minutes
of training in the parietal region (P4-T4). No pain was
reported after the second session; no need for a nap; tremor
was reduced; no nightmares or night sweats—very unusual.
After the third session, the sight of garbage bags in the
building elevator triggered a flashback. After Session 5 the
same scene elicited no reaction.
Alpha-theta (A/T) training was introduced at Session 8.
He felt “strangely calm” after the session, and pronounced
it “awesome. I can’t wait to do it again.” Memories came
up for him without emotional reaction. He saw the images
dissolve in water. He was very energized after the A/T
session. He boldly took a trip to Walmart, which went fine
until beeping at the checkout counter reminded him of
mine detectors. K. went deeper in the second A/T session,
reporting a visit from his deceased grandfather. The session
reactivated a pain in his right leg. After this session he slept
through the night for the first time since beginning the
training. The next A/T session was accompanied by muscle
pain everywhere. New memories were coming up and being
processed.
Seeing the homeless people around the office begging for
food triggered a flashback. And seeing a car accident on a
mountain highway took him back to Bosnia. After Session
11 he reported smoking less—out of habit more than felt
need. He started to feel a need to be creative. After Session
13 he reported feeling “like a million bucks.” He planned to
go to a movie theater that evening for the first time since he
had his first panic attack in a movie theater.
The subsequent pattern was to train alternately with
A/T and the alert-state training. At Session 14 he was
able to talk about the war. K. also reported less obsessive-
compulsive disorder–type checking and rechecking. Alpha-
Stim™ Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation treatment was
added between sessions for increased calming. At Session
18, K. reported “craving” a return to neurofeedback after
the weekend off. He also was craving the A/T training. As
the training drew to a close with Sessions 24 and 25, K.
experienced the return of some anxiety about the return
home. A pre-post symptom comparison is shown in the
Table.
Essentially, all of the symptoms of which K. complained
at the outset are robustly on the path toward resolution. The
Continuous Performance Test was completely normalized.
We would like to have had 40 sessions, but already after 25
sessions K. was moved to tell us: “Thank you for my new
life.” He had mastered traumas that he could never even
broach during earlier therapies, and they had largely left
the stage effortlessly. K.’s training is ongoing on a home-
training basis to further consolidate his gains.
Case Study: “A.”
The second veteran was more challenging, a Marine with
a tough outer shell—a warrior’s warrior. He came into the
program drinking excessively and with no intention of
altering his behavior. Normally we would not take such
a person, because we cannot provide the complementary
services of a residential treatment program, but we had
committed to accepting all comers among veterans. This
man had gone into Iraq with the initial assault, and he lost
most of his buddies either in that campaign or later back
home.
During the training his wife continued to support A.
in his drinking habits because she found him nicer to be
around. The perceived short-term benefits of drugs and
alcohol are a reality to which we must accommodate. The
initial burden of training is to take the nervous system to
such a place of stability, functionality, and ease that the
benefits of taking drugs are no longer seen as compelling.
This objective was only beginning to be met for A. when his
initial set of training sessions drew to a close. The schedule
was inflexible because A. was traveling a significant distance
for the treatment.
Initial complaints included hypervigilance, nightmares (3
per week), panic (1 per week), flashbacks, anger, mood swings,
anxiety/depression, visual sensitivity, tinnitus, episodic
hypertension, poor appetite awareness, and headaches with

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Table. Pre-post comparisons of symptom severity for veteran K. before and after 24 sessions of neurofeedback
Pretraining Posttraining
Flashbacks commonplace Flashbacks less often, less severe, shorter
Nightmares commonplace Only one nightmare since training began
Night sweats commonplace Only two night sweats since training began
Tunnel vision leading to panic Less risk of panic; some precursor symptoms
Hypervigilance Largely subsided
Sleep period of 3 hours Sleeping through the night; reduced meds
Out-of-body experiences No further reports
Bruxism No longer using mouth guard
Binge drinking No urge to get drunk
Depression Depression much improved; still on meds
Tinnitus No report of tinnitus
Hand tremor Tremor only apparent when stressed
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) IBS much improved; eating in restaurants
Asthma Forgetting asthma meds without penalty
Obsessive-compulsive disorder Only “checking” once a day at bedtime
Appetite awareness No longer an issue
Headaches commonplace No headaches after optimization of training
Body pain obtrusive Body pain much reduced
Nail biting Nail biting has ceased
Poor physical coordination Less clumsy
Fatigue No complaints of low energy
Mood swings Remediated
Memory and concentration Improved

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exertion. At 24 sessions, the nightmares were resolved and
flashbacks were receding as an issue. He felt more optimistic
about life. However, many symptoms remained, and he
agreed to additional training. The ORF was .05 Hz.
This case remains of particular interest because it
illustrates the substantial resolution of core symptoms of
PTSD even in the context of continuing abuse of alcohol. In
the case of Peniston’s work, the finding was typically of the
joint resolution of PTSD and of alcoholism. In this case, the
progress in training was documented with pre-post single
photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans,
which were done at the Amen Clinic in Newport Beach,
California. These are shown in the Figure. The most obvious
changes in the SPECT consisted of reduced overactivation of
the anterior cingulate, the basal ganglia, and the cerebellum.
Overactivation remains at the thalamus, which could indicate
a residual propensity to depression.
In a subsequent training sequence, conducted after the
post-SPECT were taken, A. was much more future oriented,
and he was beginning to acknowledge his drinking habit as a
problem. Again, however, the training epoch was limited in
time, and more training is needed.
Discussion
Both of the above cases illustrate the essential features
of our approach to resolving PTSD. The immediate target
is a general improvement in self-regulatory capacity,
using protocols to which every nervous system responds.
Figure. Pre-post single photo emission computed tomography scan data are shown for veteran no. 2, comparing pretraining conditions with those prevailing after
24 sessions. Classic signs associated with post traumatic stress disorder include elevations in activity at the anterior cingulate, the basal ganglia, and the thalamus.
In posttraining data, the activity level at the anterior cingulate and basal ganglia are reduced. Additionally, the high activation of the cerebellum has been reduced.
A color version of this figure can be found at http://www.aapb.org/magazine.html.

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The guiding philosophy is that better function displaces
dysfunction. Symptoms are merely the guideposts of
progress; they determine the training procedures only
in a very general way. One can think of this as a kind
of “zone defense” approach to neurofeedback, in which
certain functional domains are targeted in training rather
than specific symptoms. Of course symptoms are relied
upon to judge training priorities, and finally, outcomes, in
addition to the guiding of optimization procedures in the
moment.
In the initial thrust toward functional optimization,
three or four basic protocols cover the ground and a subset
of these is used with nearly everyone. The implication is
that successful neurofeedback impinges upon the quality of
communication of our neuronal networks in a very general,
almost universal fashion. The brain is subtly challenged in its
organization of timing and frequency, and the whole system
of synaptic information transport is affected in consequence
by virtue of its tight integration (S. Othmer, 2007). We get
to observe the outcome of this process through explicit
functional testing and the subsidence of symptoms.
The use of protocol-based approaches in neurofeedback
has been well established since the very origins of the
field. The principal novelty that has recently been brought
to this approach is twofold: (a) individual optimization of
reinforcement parameters; and (b) the extension of the work
to very low EEG frequencies. The optimization strategy
is its own justification. At nearly every session, an A/B
comparison is made in which adjacent reward frequencies
are compared in their effects on the trainee within the
session, and different placements are evaluated as to their
differential effects as well. This sequential and progressive
optimization strategy brings the discipline of an internally
controlled design into every neurofeedback training.
The extension of the work to low EEG frequencies
simply follows from the first, an extension of the
optimization procedure to wherever it might lead. The
high “productivity” of the low-frequency challenge in
neurofeedback, whenever such training is appropriate, is
quite striking and begs for an explanation. One has the
sense that the low frequencies may be foundational in the
organization of the frequency relationships in the EEG. It
is only at the low frequencies that we can even talk about
persistent states. Organizing the continuity of states is
one of the fundamental challenges for the brain. Much of
psychopathology can be framed in terms of an inability of
the brain to maintain continuity of function. And on the
other end of the functional continuum, working memory
capacity can similarly be modeled in terms of maintaining
continuity of state under a challenge.
When it comes to the deepest and most thorough
dysregulations of cerebral function, the disorder takes us
right to these foundational frequencies upon which our
cerebral symphony is constructed. Tracking symptoms
is a sure way of directing our attention to the part of the
frequency domain that is most in need of our attentions.
It should come as no surprise that attention to how the
nervous system actually responds to our intervention in
the moment could lead us to the most effective training
strategies.
If this picture is valid, then what we have found to be
true for PTSD should have much broader clinical validity,
and that is indeed the case. PTSD is at the extreme end of
a continuum of responses to trauma. Dissociative identity
disorder, borderline personality disorder, and reactive
attachment disorder are other extreme manifestations of the
same phenomenon. If early attachment does not develop as
nature intended, the adverse consequences involve not only
our emotional regulation but also the arousal regulation
system, and from thence autonomic regulation and the
whole orchestration of cerebral function. Unsurprisingly,
this will manifest most obviously in those EEG frequencies
that are the first to organize in the infant brain, those that
underlie our persistent states.
If the brain is not able to maintain functional continuity at
these low frequencies, the individual is much more vulnerable
to subsequent insult, whether that be minor traumatic brain
injury or psychological trauma. The statistics emerging
from our clinical practice and that of others using these
methods is that more than half of typical clinical populations
optimize at the very low frequencies. The hypothesis should
therefore be entertained that we are seeing the fallout of a
combination of poor early childhood attachment bonding
and of the prevalence of traumatic experiences (physical
and/or psychological) in our lives. It is perhaps the very
ubiquity of trauma even in ordinary lives that has prevented
us from seeing the centrality of the trauma response in
our understanding of mental dysfunction. Fortunately, we
now have a very promising, humane, and comprehensive
remedy.
References
Feldenrakis, M. (1949). Body and mature behavior. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Kelly, A. M., Uddin, L. Q., Biswall, B. B., Castellanos, F. X., &
Milham, M. P. (2008). Competition between functional brain
networks mediates behavioral variability. NeuroImage, 39,
527–537.
Othmer, S. (2007). Implication of network models for neurofeedback.
In J. R. Evans (Ed.), Handbook of neurofeedback: Dynamics and
clinical applications (pp. 25–60). New York: Haworth Press.

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Othmer, S. (2008). Neuromodulation technologies: An attempt at
classification. In T. H. Budzynski, H. K. Budzynski, J. R. Evans,
& A. Arbanel (Eds.), Introduction to QEEG and neurofeedback:
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Othmer, S. F., & Othmer, S. (2007). Interhemispheric EEG training;
Clinical experience and conceptual models. In J. R. Evans (Ed.),
Handbook of neurofeedback: Dynamics and clinical applications
(pp. 109–136). New York: Haworth Press.
Peniston, E. G., & Kulkosky, P. J. (1999). Neurofeedback in the
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(Eds.), Introduction to quantitative EEG and neurofeedback (pp.
157–176). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Correspondence: Siegfried Othmer, The EEG Institute, 22020 Clarendon Street,
#305, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, email: siegfried@eeginfo.com
Siegfried Othmer Susan Othmer
Homecoming for Veterans is a national outreach program to provide free neurofeedback training
for veterans for the rehabilitation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and issues of brain
performance resulting from traumatic brain injury, blast injury, concussion, whiplash, and chemical
exposure.
The EEG Institute and the Brian Othmer Foundation are offering this cutting-edge treatment, at
no cost, for veterans suffering from PTSD through a network of clinicians across the country. Each
clinician volunteers to provide neurofeedback free for at least one veteran.
Scott Shane of the New York Times wrote that “The nation’s hard pressed health care system for
veterans is facing a potential deluge of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious
mental health problems brought on by the stress and carnage of war...” About one soldier in six is
reporting anxiety, depression, or symptoms of PTSD. With a total number of soldiers having served in
Iraq or Afghanistan now numbering about one million, perhaps as many as 100,000 will require long
term mental health care, assuming standard treatments. Close to 1,000 soldiers have already been
evacuated from the war theater because of mental status. On the other hand, PTSD often surfaces
months after the return from combat duty.
Neurofeedback practitioners who would like to participate in the Homecoming for Veterans project
may contact the project’s Administrative Director, Caree Michel, at: Caree@homecoming4veterans.
org. More information is available about the Homecoming for Veterans project at: http://www.
homecoming4veterans.org/.