by Andrew Neufeld | Mar 15, 2018 | Anxiety, Neurofeedback
Anxiety is one of the most common mental health difficulties in Canada, and across the world. No doubt you’ve seen numerous articles on the subject, describing what anxiety is, why we suffer from it, and what to do about it. One of the questions I get asked quite frequently is whether neurofeedback can fix anxiety. It’s a great question, and here’s my answer!
Why Neurofeedback?
The premise of neurofeedback is that if we are stressed out, anxious, depressed, or are suffering from others negative symptoms, our brain is likely to be operating less than optimally. Neurofeedback is a tool that helps train the brain to adjust how it is operating so that it can function more optimally and efficiently. You might think of it as gym training for the brain. The fact that it is training is an important distinction – it is not a treatment for a specific symptom, it is a training that helps your brain optimize itself over time and learn how to do so for the long term.
What is Neurofeedback?
You may never have heard of neurofeedback before, so here’s a quick primer on dynamical neurofeedback, which is the main type of neurofeedback we do here at Alongside You. Dynamical neurofeedback uses EEG equipment and software to monitor your brain activity, and feed information back to the brain about what it is doing. A crude analogy is to equate the neurofeedback system with a giant mirror being held up for the brain so that it can see its own processes and gain the information it needs.
Why does the brain need this information you may wonder? See, the wonderful thing about our brains is that they are self-regulating. If given the necessary information, our brains can change themselves to function more optimally, back within the parameters they were designed to operate within. The brain doesn’t need us to push it, or pull it in any particular direction if we can provide the brain with the information it needs. This is what dynamical neurofeedback helps the brain with. Our primary system monitors the brain, and feeds back information 256 times per second, allowing the brain to see what it is doing and adjust accordingly.
Can Neurofeedback Fix Anxiety?
There are numerous theories as to why people get anxious. There are personality factors, biochemical factors, life factors, brain function factors, and many more. The trouble with trying to fix anxiety by any means, is there are no guarantees. This is true of counselling, psychiatric medications, and every other form of therapy or treatment out there. I’ve been in this field long enough to know that none of the treatments or therapies we employ can be guaranteed to fix what ails us. This is, however, different than asking whether something can be helpful with anxiety, and if we ask this question, the answer with regard to neurofeedback is a resounding yes in my experience. I’d like to share three ways I see neurofeedback being helpful for anxiety.
3 Ways Neurofeedback Can Help Your Anxiety
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- If you have been on medication, maybe some have worked really well or some have not. Often there are side effects to medications and in some cases, the side effects are worse than the symptom you’re trying to treat. Another concern can be when medications work for a time and then stop working. Sometimes people just simply don’t want to take medications for various reasons. This is where neurofeedback can be helpful and this is because neurofeedback is another way of working with the brain biology without the use of medications.
- If our brains are not functioning optimally when we’re anxious, neurofeedback can train our brain to function better. What’s important about this is that we’re not simply treating, or masking undesirably symptoms, we’re helping the brain function better and learn how to do this long term. Again, the analogy of going to the gym is helpful. If you get injured playing sports, you can simply take some medication to mask the pain. More effective, however, is going to the gym, under the guidance of a physiotherapist or other rehab professional, and working on the muscles, joints, and other areas to rehabilitate the injury and hopefully prevent a new one. This is what neurofeedback does for your brain.
- One of the main triggers for anxiety is the activation of the central nervous system (CNS) and interaction with the autonomic nervous system (ANS). In fact, some of the most exciting research coming out right now around anxiety, depression, and trauma has to do with the CNS and ANS, and particularly, the vagus nerve (but that’s a whole topic on its own). Check out this article if you want to geek out on this information. One of the most exciting things for me in working with my clients with anxiety is that neurofeedback can directly influence the CNS and ANS and induce the relaxation response, lowering the triggers for anxiety. This is especially exciting for those suffering from generalized anxiety because it is one of the most difficult forms to treat by other modalities. I can tell you that in my experience with clients, as well as my own personal experience with a generalized anxiety disorder, neurofeedback has been one of the most helpful things I’ve ever seen or experienced, both personally and professionally.
If I’m Interested in Neurofeedback What Should I Do?
If you’re interested in neurofeedback for your anxiety, please give us a call. It’s not necessarily a fast treatment (in our experience and the data for the system we mainly use, 12-20 sessions is the average), but it’s an effective tool that has long-lasting effects and trains your brain to function better for the long term. It can be used in conjunction with medications, and it actually has the potential to reduce the need for medication and enable a lowering of doses in some cases. Neurofeedback is an exciting tool in our toolbox, and another way to we can bring holistic, integrated approaches to care for our clients. As you can probably tell by now, I’m pretty excited about this.
Please contact us or give us a call if you have any questions or if you want to explore whether neurofeedback might be right for you. We’d love to chat!
by Andrew Neufeld | Mar 1, 2018 | Communication, Connection, Counselling, Trauma sensitive
As some of you may have picked up, the title is a tribute to one of my favourite authors of all time, C.S. Lewis, who was no stranger to grief and loss. A part of his story is the loss of his wife, and A Grief Observed is a tribute to her and commentary on his own grief process; and I dare say, well worth the read. It’s not reading his books, however, that has me thinking about grief and our own emotional processes.
The past month or two has been a difficult one in our local community of South Delta as well as our new home in South Surrey. There have been a number of lives lost, families coping with tragedies, car accidents with serious consequences, and even new developments in a case where a family lost a husband and father due to a violent incident in Tsawwassen.
How does one take all of this in, and continue? I’m often asked how it is that I do my job every day, dealing with trauma (much of my clinical caseload), and tragedy in the community that we love so deeply. I’m not going to lie – there are days where it’s difficult. Some days where it’s incredibly difficult. This past week was one of the hardest. I was asked to speak at a service for a young man who took his own life. There is nothing I could possibly write here to describe the devastation felt by his family who loved him so very much. There’s nothing that I could write here that would come close to trying to explain their loss and pain, or the pain that leads him to end his life by suicide at such a young age.
This, however, is the reality of our existence. Grief and loss are ubiquitous – it doesn’t matter how young or old, how rich or poor, how educated or not, we are – things happen in life and we are left with the consequences. How is it that we are to respond to grief and loss when it enters our lives? What do we say to an individual, a couple, or a family in any of these situations? The truth is that there really is very little that can be said. What we need in these times is empathy.
Brené Brown speaks a lot about empathy, and one of the things that she has said rang truer to me in this past week than any other, and that is that very seldom can anything we say make anything better. What makes things better is a connection – the knowledge that someone is there with us, walking through this difficult part of life, and connecting with us on an emotional level.
This is the heart of counselling, and why it is that I do what I do, and why we take a trauma-sensitive, emotion-focused approach at our clinic. I know that as I’ve processed my own grief and trauma throughout my life, the help of a Registered Clinical Counsellor has been invaluable. Knowing that it’s not something someone says that makes things better, how is it that a counsellor can help us in our process? Sometimes it’s hard to put a finger on. Here are three ways that I believe counselling can help us as we walk through our own grief:
- We can be heard without judgement.
In the same video I referenced above we heard Brené Brown comment that it’s hard to refrain from judgement because most of us enjoy it. We carry judgements around with us throughout our days and our lives, it’s a natural human tendency. Often, rather than trying to understand, we’re listening to respond. This is where a counsellor can be helpful, and where we can all practice the empathic stance of non-judgement – it’s an intentional choice, and one of the key skills a counsellor employs. We listen to understand, and we suspend judgement.
- We can be understood from our own perspective.
One of the key skills taught to counsellors in their training is what is called the “not knowing stance” and it is something that I focus a lot on with the interns that I train. One of our natural tendencies as human beings is to assume that we know and understand how someone feels when they have an experience we have also had. Often, we may respond with, “Oh yeah, I totally know what how that feels!” This is dangerous, however, because just because we have a similar experience, doesn’t mean we have similar emotions and reactions, and it doesn’t mean the event has the same impact on us that it does on someone else. If we respond in this way, we run the risk of the person feeling that they aren’t heard, and definitely, aren’t understood. This “not knowing stance” assists counsellors to get to the client’s understanding of their experience and understanding it from their perspective – this is the root of empathy.
- We can know that we are not alone.
What you get from reading A Grief Observed, is a picture of the ongoing process of grief. Grief is not a linear, finite path; instead, it is a winding road that goes over hills, through valleys, and up mountains, and occasionally one reaches a clearing and finds peace. That is until the journey begins again. This is a difficult, emotionally draining journey – I imagine if I were to undertake a literal grief journey, I’d want someone there with me while I walk. This is true of our emotional journey, and the role of the counsellor in the process of grief. A journey mate, a companion, one who reminds us that we are not alone in the good, the bad, and even the ugly; and also, not alone when we find times of peace. One who also has the skills to help us participate in the journey, and travel safely.
There is more to be said about grief and loss, but I hope this helps some of you who have been on this journey recently, and some who have been on it for a while. Know that you are not alone, there are people around you to listen, hear, and understand. If one of our Registered Clinical Counsellors can be helpful in your process, please give us a call; we’re here to journey with you.
by Andrew Neufeld | Feb 15, 2018 | Counselling, Love, Relationship
I’ll admit it right off of the bat – I’m a hopeless romantic; always have been, always will be. Little known fact about me is that while Meg and I were dating, I was voted Most Romantic Man in Vancouver by my friend who owned the local flower shop. But that’s a story for another day. Needless to say, I am indeed a fan of love. I suppose that’s why I became a marriage and family therapist – if we’re destined for love, I wanted to have a positive impact on the type of love we have.
Here’s the problem – Valentine’s Day kind of sucks. Or at least, that’s often the impression we’re left with. You’ve probably heard it all by now, “It’s too commercialized…it’s a scam by the retail industry…they just wants our money…I hate pink…,” and so on and so forth. Well, here’s the thing, the people saying these things aren’t totally wrong. Valentine’s Day is very commercialized, retail outlets do scheme to make money on the holiday, and they do want your money, and some people really do hate pink. I’ll even admit that as a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, I sometimes get tired of the hoopla around a single day, and the fact that I’m often behind the 8-ball and running around last minute trying to figure out what to do.
So, I reflected on Valentine’s Day this year while I was making some of the preparations, asking myself what it is that I find important about Valentine’s Day, and why I make the effort. Here are the three reasons I came up with this year:
- Relationships are important, and it’s okay that we celebrate this. Furthermore, it’s so easy to overlook relationships when we get busy and the advantage of having Valentine’s Day is that it forces us to remember the importance of our relationships, and particularly our romantic ones.
- Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about romantic love. Every year, we give our kids Valentine’s Day cards and gifts, but I wanted to do something slightly different this year. I am fortunate to have an incredible wife and two amazing daughters. This year, I gave them each a journal and inside, I wrote a message to each of them about something specific that I believed about, hoped for, and appreciated in them and that my hope was that the journal would be a place where they could reflect on these things in the coming year. I wanted to make sure that each of them knew how special they were, and uniquely so. This is something we can do for anyone special in our lives – a repurposing of the original intent perhaps?
- Being reminded of love reminds us of the importance of connection. Attachment and connection are two of the most important things in life, and a reminder to us that we are indeed relational beings who thrive on relationships with others. Also, by loving others, we remind ourselves that we, too, are worthy of love. If we are enamoured with someone we think is incredible and know that they choose to be with us, then either we must also be special, or they must be delusional for spending time with us. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure the former is more likely and true. Sometimes we need this reminder in life, especially if we are struggling.
Now, for some of you, Valentine’s Day is a painful reminder of the romantic relationship you don’t have that you long for. I can only imagine what that’s like. What I do know, is that you are worthy of love, romantic or otherwise. My hope is that while your Valentine’s Day may not have been about romance this year, perhaps there was a reminder of how someone in your life values you.
To take a slightly different spin, some self-compassion can go a long way. I’m going to suggest an exercise here, both for those in romantic relationships and those who aren’t, and it may sound a little weird. I’m going to suggest writing yourself a love letter. Yes, I said write a love letter to yourself. Why? Because self-compassion is simply taking the compassionate stance we find so easy to give to others, and turning around and giving it to ourselves. Most of us are our own worst critics – it’s so easy to see, and pounce on our own faults. We’d never say half the things to someone else that we say to ourselves.
To flip it around, I find it so easy to write a letter to my wife or my kids. I can immediately think of so many things I think are incredible and unique about them, and my hopes and dreams for them. I find it much harder to do this for myself, but it’s an important exercise because it affirms our own worth, our uniqueness, and our status as worthy and deserving of love and compassion.
I know it may sound weird, but I’m going to challenge you to try it. It may sound like a strange counselling exercise that only a Registered Clinical Counsellor or therapist would suggest, and you may be right – but that doesn’t mean it won’t be helpful. If you do try it, I’d love to hear your experience and how it impacted you. Please feel free to contact me through the website with your feedback, even if you just want to reiterate how much Valentine’s Day sucks. That’s ok, at least we’re connecting. But I would be very surprised if you could do this exercise and not find something helpful in it.
If you’re struggling with your relationship with your significant other, or your relationship with yourself, we’d love to be of help. Please contact us or give us a call, that’s what we’re here for.
by Andrew Neufeld | Feb 1, 2018 | Communication, Counselling
Yesterday was Bell Let’s Talk day. Last year, it raised over $6.5 million for mental health initiatives. Over $85 million has been donated toward mental health since its inception. I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty significant to me. We talk about ending stigma, and I’m all for it, but I’m also practical and always ask the question, “So how is this doing something to help people on a practical level?” This is what I really appreciate about Bell Let’s Talk Day – that it not only starts a conversation about mental health, and normalizes the experience, but it’s also using the conversation to drive innovation and services to help those impacted by mental health.
I sat down to write this article yesterday, but I just couldn’t. I’d initially wanted to write an article as a part of Bell Let’s Talk, but it just wasn’t going to happen. See, yesterday marked another anniversary for me and for one of my very best friends. Yesterday was the anniversary of my friend losing her life to mental health. I’d known her since I was about 6 years old and her brother is one of my best friends. We grew up together, experienced life together, and both experienced the ups and downs. She was a firecracker of a personality, a talented musician, adventurer, pusher of boundaries, and more recently, a mother.
As many of us do, she tried all sorts of things to deal with her difficulties, some proactive, and some reactive; some helpful, and some not so much. Nothing seemed to work, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. This is the reality for some – no matter what is tried, the symptoms are still there. I know I’ve had counselling clients who have sat in my office saying, “Andrew, I feel like I’ve tried everything, and nothing is making this go away.” I’ll tell you, as a professional, there’s nothing that makes me feel quite so powerless. But this is the reality for some, and I know this from my own personal experience with mental health – sometimes we try everything and nothing makes it go away.
What then? Do we give up? Do we throw in the towel and just come to terms with the fact that mental health problems are here to stay regardless of what we do? Absolutely not. If this was how I felt, quite frankly, Alongside You would not exist. My clients will often hear me say that I don’t believe in hopeless cases, and it’s true. I can’t promise my clients that we can make the anxiety, depression, psychosis, or trauma go away; I wish I could believe me! I do believe, however, that there is always hope – no matter how awful things are, there is always hope. I’d like to propose three things that bring hope for those of us who struggle with mental health, and those who support others in their struggle.
Empathy
The word empathy has been gaining traction and is being talked about more and more, and I couldn’t be happier about it. See, empathy is very different than sympathy. Sympathy is often our natural reaction, likely in response to our own pain over the suffering of others. We want to make it go away so we try to make it sound less awful. It’s really an attempt to soothe ourselves, but it has the opposite effect on the person we’re trying to help. Brené Brown gives a great definition of empathy in this video, and I encourage you to watch it; it only takes a few minutes. The take-home message, however, is that empathy drives connection, sympathy creates disconnection. A connection is what we need, particularly when we’re in pain because words rarely make something better, as Brené Brown notes, what makes it better is the connection.
Connection
A connection is being used as a buzz word in many circles these days (particularly in business), but what does it really mean to connect? It depends on the context. It could send a text message, it could be getting together over coffee, or it could be something deeper. All of these options can be good things to do with people struggling with mental health, but I want to highlight one thing that I think gets in the way of connecting, and that is fear. Mental health can be a scary thing, especially if we don’t have lived experience with it ourselves. What do we say? How do we respond? What if we don’t understand?
The beauty of empathy, and of connecting with someone on any level, is that we don’t need to understand, we just need be with them. Even though I’ve had my own difficulties with mental health over the years, I still don’t understand everything my clients, friends, colleagues, or family members experience. Some of what I come across is scary or makes me feel helpless, or downright confused. But if I remember that I don’t have to understand, I just have to connect, I can get past the fear and be with the person.
If you’re not sure how to be with the person, just ask them. This not only alleviates the pressure of having to figure out what the person needs and understand what’s going on, it empowers the person to tell you what they need, which in and of itself is beneficial. Remember, we are not dealing with issues, we are dealing with people.
Education
Finally, I want to highlight the importance of educating ourselves. I know I just said we don’t need to understand all the time in order to be there with someone, but some understanding sure does help. It also acts as an antidote to fear so that we can be ourselves with others as they are in their pain and suffering. There are so many resources now to educate ourselves on mental health it’s amazing. Here’s a few to start with:
We hope our blog is also a resource for you. If you have topics you’d like to see addressed on the blog, please contact us with what you’d like to know more about and we’ll do our best to address it in an upcoming post.
You Are Not Alone
If you’re reading this and you are struggling, please know that you are not alone. Struggling in silence, while I can completely understand it, isn’t going to get you the help you need. I know from my own journey that if I’d spoken up, and talked about it more when I was at my worst, life could have been a lot better and the suffering could have been much less.
Please reach out; whether it’s to us at Alongside You, to your local mental health team, to your family, your friends, your pastor, or otherwise, please reach out to someone so they can connect with you and ask how it is they can help.
You are loved.
by Andrew Neufeld | Jan 11, 2018 | Counselling, Motivation
For whatever reason, whenever I think about motivation, I think about the Sprite commercial from the late 90’s that had some very macho-looking basketball players named Freight Train, Pablo, and Mo-T, with hard-hitting dialogue, interrupted by the director calling, “Cut,” to say that the Sprite can is upside down. Mo-T tells the director off, saying he’d played Hamlet at Cambridge, Pablo complains that once again the director has ruined his concentration, and Freight Train asks the question, “Excuse me, what’s my motivation?” The commercial ends with the tagline, “Image is nothing. Thirst is everything. Obey your thirst.”
Now, clearly, the marketing folks knew what they were doing because I remember this commercial almost 20 years after the fact, and it’s stuck with me. This is somewhat disconcerting because I don’t like to think that I fall prey to marketing because, well, I’m too smart for that. Apparently not. To top it off, all they were trying to do was sell some drinks. So what does this have to do with me, as a Registered Clinical Counsellor and more importantly, what does it have to do with my counselling or coaching clients or anyone else who might be reading our blog this week?
I started thinking about this article over the Christmas break because I knew that the New Year’s resolution discussions were inevitable. Clients would come into the counselling room with all sorts of changes they wanted to make, blogs would be full of articles titled, “How to Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Work in 2018,” and inevitably, products would launch promising to make our dreams come true and help us stick to all of our newfound resolutions. Well, research has shown that New Year’s resolutions don’t stick, and they don’t work for most people. There’s plenty of opinions as to why this might be, and certainly a plethora of articles suggesting how to make sure yours works this year.
My opinion, however, is that most of our resolutions fail because they are tied to an image of ourselves that we want to attain. If only I shed those 20 pounds of weight; if only I was in better shape; if only I could sing better; if only I made more money; and so on and so forth. In other words, if only I could make these changes, and project this image, I’d be a better person, or perhaps more like, and then I’d feel worthwhile.
I have one question for you at the start of this year – and that is, what are you thirsting for? But not in the sense of your image, like how you want to look, how much you want to weigh, or how much more money you want to make at your job; rather, I want to know who you want to be. See, I believe resolutions fail because they are aimed at images of ourselves that automatically tell us we’re not good enough, rather than being aimed at who we want to be and how we want to interact with the world, informed by the knowledge that we are good enough just as we are.
So what are you thirsting after? Who do you want to be this year? How do you want to be defined as a human being, and ultimately, as one who is worthy, and deserving of being loved? I have an exercise for you. I sort of stole it from Mike Mawhorter from Ladner Baptist Church, and I’m not sure who he stole it from. I’ve changed it a bit to fit our purposes here. I’d like you to pick one word that you want to define you this year; to define your pursuits and to define how you interact with the world and ultimately, to define who you are. I’ll give you an example from my own life.
Last year, I picked the word integrity. I decided that I wanted everything I did in 2017 to be defined by and to flow out of integrity. Being a perfectionist by nature, I’m well aware of my shortcomings and areas I’ve failed at this. All in all, however, as I look back on 2017 I am surprised by how helpful this exercise was in three key areas, and I hope they are helpful to you. Picking a word to represent who we want to be, and how we want to operate, allows us to:
- Have a metric by which to make decisions. It’s simplistic but effective. As opportunities come up, or decisions are to be made, we can ask ourselves the question, “Does this get me closer to who I want to be, or further away? If it’s the former, go for it; if it’s the latter, say no and don’t do it.
- Keep the focus away from the image and toward our intrinsic values and desires, or the things we are thirsting after.
- Be motivated by the things that truly matter to us. If we are thirsting after something, our motivation is high. If we simply want to maintain a particular image or lose 20lbs because it’s a good idea, we’re probably not going to stick to it. If, however, we want to lose 20lbs because we want to be healthy, treat ourselves well, and be there for our kids as they grow up, we’ve got a better shot at it.
As I reflect on 2017 and move into 2018, I’m excited. I’m excited for what we’re doing here at Alongside You, I’m excited that we’re going to help more people this year than we have in the years combined since we opened, and I’m excited because if this works, those of you reading this will become closer and closer to a self-definition and motivation that is focused on who you want to be, rather than what you want to do, and reinforcing of the truth that you are valuable, worthy, and deserving of love, just as you are.
“IMAGE IS NOTHING. THIRST IS EVERYTHING.”
So, pick a word that you want to define who you are in 2018. Thirst after it, be motivated by it, and I wish you all the success in the world as you journey toward a deeper sense of self-compassion and self-love this year. You are worth it.
If our team at Alongside You can be of any help as you forge ahead in 2018, please contact us, we’d love to hear from you.
