The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS Technique for Restoring Optimal Brain Function [Paperback]

Stephen Larsen (Author), Thom Hartmann (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2006

An introduction to the innovative therapy that restores optimal functioning of the brain after physical or emotional trauma

• Provides an alternative to the more invasive therapies of electroshock and drugs

• Shows how this therapy helps ameliorate anxiety and depression as well as childhood developmental disorders

• Includes extraordinary case histories that reveal the powerful results achieved

According to the Centers for Disease Control, each year 260,000 people are hospitalized with traumatic brain injuries. The Brain Injury Association reports 1.5 million injuries, many of which go undiagnosed but which lead to all kinds of cognitive and emotional impairments. While neuroscience has learned an enormous amount about the connection between brain trauma and personality changes, the methods proposed for resolving these alterations are generally limited to drug therapy or surgeries.

This book explores a much less invasive but highly effective technique of restoring brain function: the Low Energy Neurofeedback System (LENS). Developed by Dr. Len Ochs in 1992, it has had extraordinary results using weak electromagnetic fields to stimulate brain-wave activity and restore brain flexibility and function. The treatment works across a broad spectrum of human activity, increasing the brain’s abilities to adapt to the imbalances caused by physical trauma or emotional disorders--both on the basic level and in the more subtle areas of cognitive, affective, and spiritual processes that make us truly human. While the treatment has had remarkable results with individuals who have experienced severe physical trauma to the head and brain, Stephen Larsen sees it also as an important alternative to chemical approaches for such chronic behavioral disorders as ADHD and monopolar and bipolar depression.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Doctors at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital began noticing last year that MRIs left people with bipolar disorder in much better moods. . . . it suggests that magnetic fields can alter the biology of the brain, and may cause other effects we don’t understand yet."
("Health & Science News," The Week )

“Kudos to Stephen Larsen for the accomplishment of a superb book that chronicles the development of a technique that will revolutionize mental health care . . .”
( Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D., Aug. 18, 2006
)

". . . an important alternative to chemical approaches for such chronic behavioral disorders as ADHD, and monopolar and bipolar depression."
(Aznet News, Oct-Nov 2006 )

"If you're looking for new ways to treat old problems you will find this an invaluable resource."
(Rahasya Poe, Lotus Guide, Nov-Dec 2006 )

“This is a book that should be on the bookshelf of every primary care physician, neurologist, neurosurgeon, pain management specialist, psychologist, and clinical social worker. This book is a must-read for anyone who has had a history of head trauma (who hasn't?), as well as anyone who knows someone with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ADD, or autism.”
(Richard A. Bernstein, M.D., FCCP )

". . . offers a new methodology which may be of help to a wide variety of conditions for which there has previously been little hope."
(Mark A. Lawrence, M.D., May 2007 )

From the Back Cover

HEALTH / MEDICINE 

“Doctors at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital began noticing last year that MRIs left people with bipolar disorder in much better moods. . . . it suggests that magnetic fields can alter the biology of the brain, and may cause other effects we don’t understand yet.”
“Health & Science News,” THE WEEK

According to the Centers for Disease Control, each year 260,000 people are hospitalized with traumatic brain injuries. The Brain Injury Association reports 1.5 million injuries annually, many of which go undiagnosed but which can lead to various cognitive and emotional impairments. Traditionally the methods for resolving these impairments have been limited to drug therapy or surgery.

This book explores an alternative, highly effective technique of restoring brain function: the Low Energy Neurofeedback System (LENS). Developed by Dr. Len Ochs in 1992, it has had extraordinary results using weak electromagnetic fields to stimulate brain-wave activity and restore brain flexibility and responsiveness. The treatment works across a broad spectrum of human activity--both on the basic functional level and in the more subtle areas of cognitive, affective, and spiritual processes that make us truly human. While the LENS treatment has had remarkable results with individuals who have experienced severe physical trauma to the head and brain, psychotherapist and neurofeedback researcher Stephen Larsen also sees it as an important alternative to chemical approaches for such chronic behavioral disorders as anxiety, ADHD, monopolar and bi-polar depression, and childhood developmental disorders. The Healing Power of Neurofeedback chronicles the development of this groundbreaking technique and includes case histories that demonstrate the validity of this dynamic, emerging healing modality.

STEPHEN LARSEN, PH.D., is Psychology Professor Emeritus at SUNY Ulster and the author of The Shaman’s Doorway and The Mythic Imagination and coauthor of Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind. He has been using the LENS clinically since 1996 and biofeedback since 1975 in his psychotherapy practice. He directs the Stone Mountain Center for Counseling and Biofeedback near New Paltz, New York.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Healing Arts Press; 1 edition (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594770840
• ISBN-13: 978-1594770845
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Abdominal
  • #57 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Nervous System

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book about truely brillian methodology, May 30, 2006

By 

G. Levens (Oracle, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS Technique for Restoring Optimal Brain Function (Paperback)

I have the good fortune to be one of Len Ochs patients. (He is the developer/creator of the LENS technique.) Because of this I am strongly biased in favor of the methodology as it has changed my life. I had no bias about the book prior to reading it but found it to be an excellent introduction for anyone about this treatment methodology.

The book is easy and interesting to read and understand and the case studies are truly heart warming and hope inspiring.

More important is the actual subject matter, the LENS technique. The Lens technique feeds-back to the brain a tiny micro-dose of whatever its most dysfunctional brainwave pattern is--the essential definition of homeopathy (a micro-dose of whatever is causing the problem or of the problem itself). The end result is that the noise is removed from the brain wave patterns and the full human being that has been hidden underneath has a chance to emerge. I'm sure the EEG software was not simple to write but the overall concept is elegantly simple and the whole method very objective and straightforward.

I would be what is classified as a "tough case". Most of my brain dysfunction is a result of prenatal and early infancy developmental trauma. My understanding is that this type takes much longer to change and receive benefit. After 30+ years of various therapies and process work and 35+ years of dedicated meditation practice I had changed quite a bit but my core of anxiety and fear, a sort of PTSD physiology, was unchanged. After some months of having the great good fortune of being treated by Dr. Ochs himself, I am calmer, happier, sleep better and am more emotionally available. Just ask my wife or my therapist!

The only downside is that there are as yet so few trained practitioners. So I recommend reading this book and then giving to your favorite alt.oriented doctor or therapist and see if you can get them interested in taking the training.

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A valuable resource for those researching neurotherapy, July 8, 2006

By 

J. Moore - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS Technique for Restoring Optimal Brain Function (Paperback)

I have been a layman advocate of Neurotherpy since the mid-nineties. My youngest son was a low performing high school student who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. All total he had approximately 40 treatments of eeg-neurofeedback using the EEG Spectrum protocol after trying Ritalin, which he could not tolerate. After neurofeedback treatment, but still with very little confidence, he reluctantly entered college. One day in an algebra class he realized that for the first time in his academic life that not only was he paying attention, he was following what the professor was saying, and he then realized that the change was probably due to the neurotherapy treatments. He is now a confident, capable college graduate doing a complicated job that he loves and went after himself. He is a highly funtional person and I am a proud father.

I became somewhat obsessed with keeping up with this field and all the variations of treatments, and I have directed many people to various practioners in my state. I have attended multiple conferences as a layman just to keep up with advances and spin-offs from this treatment. My bookshelves at home are full of publications on this subject because I so strongly believe in the physiological principles being discovered in this area. This book finally explains in clear, understandable language what Len Och's protocol does, or at least what is known up to this point. Most importantly,it brings together a comprehensive view that needs to be understood both by the public and practitioners of the trade. Chapter Twelve discusses all the other modalities of treatment of disorders and how all of them are important and how possibly none of them alone is the only answer to many complicated disorders. This field of treatment addresses many things that mainstream medicine presently is not addressing, and this book offers other avenues to explore. I think the author explains that enigma as well as anyone I have read. For anyone practicing, or for anyone trying to decide if it is a protocol that might improve their lives or a loved one's life, this is a must read.

100 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not about neurofeedback, May 2, 2007

By 

N. Slowinski "film critic" (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Healing Power of Neurofeedback: The Revolutionary LENS Technique for Restoring Optimal Brain Function (Paperback)

LENS is a technique of using short duration, low intensity radio waves at the same frequency of the brain, or with a specific offset, applied through an external scalp electrode to break up stuck brain patterns. The brain adapts and assumes a more flexible or more functional pattern, and the patient gets better. This book is about the results of a specific neurotherapy technique. It's not neurofeedback, although the author seems to think this verbal slight of hand is OK. The author claims that LENS is neurofeedback because it takes a signal from the brain and "feeds that same signal back to the brain." Under this definition, we should now call homeopathy a type of biofeedback.

I am not in a position to definitively say what neurofeedback is or is not. Anyone, including the author, is entitled to define what neurofeedback is. All I can say is that his definition is, at the very least, at the periphery of what the self-regulation disciplines of bioefeedback and neurofeedback are about at their core. Neurofeedback provides feedback to the person so that they can change a behavior or response. The LENS technique makes no attempt whatsoever to include the person in their treatment. It is something that is done to them, not with them.

It is not a "how to" book by any measure. It is an "about" book, from start to finish. The writing is light and easy to read, with only minimal detail about the specifics of the concept, and almost nothing about the actual implementation of the concept. So you won't learn much, other than LENS is wonderful and can help with many intractable conditions.

I believe the book has been given an inappropriate title. In fact, the proper titles are alluded to many times in the text itself, as well as the fact that LENS is a third or fourth generation acronym for the process. Some of the previous names describe it accurately by including the phrase disentrainment technique. The author refers to this throughout the book, so it remains a mystery as to why the technique has now been renamed LENS. Maybe he wanted a sexier title. Maybe he wanted to honor his mentor with an acronym that mimics his first name (Len). Who knows. In any case, I found both the title and subtitle misleading. The process is not neurofeedback. It is a type of electronic homeopathy. Second, the subtitle says "technique' but the book completely ignores the how to of LENS. It is almost entirely about the effects of LENS as presented by anecdotes of individual case studies.

I think this title creates more confusion than clarity, as does the subtitle. But it may be that the author believes it most closely resembles neurofeedback, or that their most likely group to recruit for this specific technique are those who are interested or practice neurofeedback, because they can most readily recognize how or why it would be helpful. But they are philosophically very different in one very critical aspect. In LENS, it is the operator or clinician who is making the choices and going through a learning process. The patient is 100% passive to the process. In biofeedback and neurofeedback, the patient or trainee is actually trying to learn something, or more accurately, to surrender or direct themselves in a way that something their brain is already capable of can more readily or more appropriately happen. With LENS you just get better. The downside of this is that you also become more dependent on a clinician with his black box and proprietary software. If it doesn't work, or if you get worse, then it's back to the clinician for more treatment, which is fundamentally the opposite of learning to self regulate. Yes, it is true that LENS is a method for regulating the brain. To call it self-regulation, when the word `self' refers to the patient's brain, as opposed to the patient who participates in the process of self regulation, is misleading.

This is another "aren't I wonderful, please come to my clinic" book. That's fine, sales and marketing are legitimate business functions and these sorts of books seem to be very popular in alternative medicine circles. But my preference is for books that provide me with useful skills. This book is merely an interesting read about a powerful new technique that is not accessible to the lay person. Neurofeedback, on the other hand, is accessible to the lay person. There are books, training is available, and I can buy hardware, software, and instructional materials so I can do it myself. LENS is only available at special clinics.

Do I think the technique is good? Yes, clearly it is widely beneficial. But this extended sales brochure is neither informative to someone who wants to learn how it is done (that's another seminar / book); nor is it informative to the potential patient who wants to fully understand what is being done to him by the clinician. But it sounds like a very good process, and if I were willing to pay $200+ per hour, wanted to travel somewhere far away, and didn't know what to do with myself for 15 hours of treatment, I would seriously consider it. As of the book's publication in 2006, there were supposedly 200 practitioners worldwide.

The author openly states that those who criticize LENS (Len?) are jealous of his process because they can't figure out how low intensity doses of radio waves for an average of less than 6 seconds per treatment (1 - 5 sites on the scalp) can be so helpful. I hope they are wildly successful, but with the total treatment time so extraordinarily short, they could just as easily make it available to 3 or 4 clients per hour, for 10 minutes of evaluation and 6 to 30 seconds of treatment. I think it is a probably a revolutionary, albeit (author agrees) not new treatment. Approaches to healing that are homeopathic in style have been around for a long time.

The book is simply the author's way of promoting their work, without actually saying much about what they do. Magical proprietary software and hardware do that. LENS' entry onto the alternative therapy scene will be slow and limited, the same as most other alternative therapies that are rolled out in this fashion, available to a select bunch who shell out big bucks for the real training, as opposed to the introduction that you received by buying the book. I strongly believe that if someone goes to the trouble of writing a book, he should also go to the trouble of empowering people to the greatest extent possible. This author doesn't necessarily fail this test, because after all, you now know there is a wonderful new therapy out there, you are creating the demand that future credentialed practitioners need to support a full time practice. But it doesn't pass the empowerment test, either.

Is the author a good guy with good intentions? I'm sure he is. Is the book well written, given what it actually covers? Yes. But is the topic worthwhile, worth sitting down, buying this book, and reading through it? Depends on what your goals are.