From the Publisher
ADHD Treatment Follow-Up Study: May, 2000
Even though, after treating ADHD children and their families for years it was clear that CAER treatment was very effective; it was finally time to do a systematic quantitative follow-up study. The results strongly support my clinical impression that CAER makes dramatic improvements in all aspects of the constellation of symptoms comprising ADHD/ADD, without the use of medications. It should be noted that these are some of the most difficult ADHD children around. Parents don't spend the time and money to fly to Spokane until they have exhausted all closer and cheaper alternatives.
Over the last 2 years (98, 99) I saw 74 children, and their families, who could be clearly diagnosed as ADHD/ADD. Their ages ranged from 6 to 17 years. Seventy six percent were males the balance females. Ninety six percent had previously been treated with psychotropic medications, such as Ritalin, Cylert, Adderall, Dexedrine, Chlonadine, Paxil, etc.
We were able to contact 49 parents by telephone to administer a short questionnaire about the effects of CAER treatment on their ADHD/ADD child. To avoid a short-term placebo or honey-moon-effect, only families 6 months or more post-treatment were contacted. All families were treated with three multi-hour intensive treatment sessions over three days.
Overall results were:
86% rated it as Very Effective 6% rated it as Effective 8% rated it as No Different None rated it as harmful.
None of the children in the Very Effective or Effective categories had been placed on psychotropic medications. Of the children rated No difference, 58% in that category had been placed on psychotropic medications, with mixed effectiveness.
Behavior Change At Home:
81% rated their child's behavior as Much Better 11% rated their child's behavior as Better 8% rated their child's behavior as No Different None rated it as harmful
Behavior Change At School:
76% rated their child's behavior as Much Better 13% rated their child's behavior as Better 11% rated their child's behavior as No Different None rated it as harmful
Change in Grades:
74% rated their child's grades as Much Better 15% rated their child's grades as Better 11% rated their child's grades as No Different None felt that their child's grades were worse as a result of treatment
From the Author
With terror in my heart, I can still remember sitting in emotional and almost physical pain at Palm Elementary School in Beaumont, California. It was fourth grade, and what was going on in the classroom was beyond my attention. That's because my mind had escaped. Looking out the window was my only escape from the endless monotony of the classroom. Being "jerked back" when the teacher called on me, was overwhelming and nauseating. I felt I had missed so much while being "spaced out" that the demands seemed insurmountable. I had no clue where to begin. Since I felt little hope of being rewarded for my feeble efforts, my biggest desire was to escape on another mental vacation. That is exactly what I did. My mind traveled out the window again -- even though I dimly knew that I was digging myself into a deeper hole. As self-defeating as this strategy was, it was my only defense. My understanding of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is deeply rooted in my own experience. I was an ADHD child. I am now a Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist with a thriving and successful practice. Parents, there is hope for you and your ADHD child.
Why My Interest in ADHD
Professionally, I have been working with ADHD children since 1971. For the first twenty years I read the books, took courses, and did the therapy as prescribed. As hard as I tried to make it work, the theoretical picture did not seem to fit the children I was seeing, nor did the prescribed therapy approaches prove very useful. In 1991, I began to develop a radically different approach to psychotherapy for all of my patients, ADHD and others. This led to the invention of a computerized psychotherapy machine, Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring (CAER). Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring is a new, patented, treatment that sprang from another new therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMD/R). (EMD/R is fully explained in chapter 24). Unlike traditional therapies, CAER does not depend much on talking. Rather, it taps powerful neurological mechanisms to elicit deep relaxation and vivid mental imagery. When these two effects are juxtaposed, pathology-producing emotions are extinguished through a process called desensitization. More simply put, CAER uses lights and sound to help the ADHD child enter a relaxed state. Then, the relaxed and calm child, with the aid and supervision of a therapist, imagines an anxiety-provoking situation -- such as school. Quickly, the relaxed state erases the anxiety state so that school, or whatever the provoker might be, no longer causes stress in the child. No drugs are used at all. Initially I used Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring on my adult patients who had a variety of common problems such as depression, anxiety, phobias and marriage problems. The results were exciting. Many times these problems were eradicated in just a few sessions. Therefore, I began to extend the procedure to other problems not commonly addressed by EMD/R, including ADHD. Even with my early, primitive CAER machines, the results were striking. I really did not know why CAER worked, but two different sources began to yield insights. By reflecting on my own difficult school history and listening to the ADHD children themselves, my understanding developed. These children were telling me about feelings and experiences that I could remember well from my own school years. That's why ADHD: A Path to Success is a story of hope for parents of ADHD children. It is a personal story. It is my story. It is the success story of my patients.
