Face Your Fears: How Neurofeedback and Brainspotting Can Help You Navigate Phobias
By Rylie Pecha of AllNeuro Pathways &
Carson Meredith of Elliant Counseling
Boo!
It’s that time of year when all thinking spooky and scary come out to play! But what happens when your fears stick around after Halloween? This October, let’s talk about the neuroscience of fear, and how neurofeedback and brainspotting can help you take back control.
We’re mid-way through October: Haunted houses are opening their doors, scary movies are filling theater screens, and candy bars are being sold by the bag. For some people, it’s all part of the fun; for others, fear isn’t something they can simply turn off when the movie ends, or the Halloween decorations come down.
Fear in Your Body & Mind
A turbulent flight, a routine dental cleaning, a trip to the 14th floor where an elevator is the only option can trigger a very real physiological response… Queue racing heart, sweaty palms, nausea, and the overwhelming urge to escape. When fear begins interfering with everyday life, it can feel as though your brain is the enemy. Neurofeedback can work with the brain’s own electrical activity responsible for this response to help it respond differently when something frightens us. When used in tandem with the modality of Brainspotting, the brain has more tools to access calm in the face of perceived danger.
To understand how these treatments might help with anxiety and phobias, it helps to understand what happens inside the brain when we experience fear. Our brains are designed to detect threats and help protect us from danger. One important structure involved in this process is the ‘amygdala’, a region that helps identify emotionally significant stimuli (like ghosts and skeletons and dentists! Oh my!) and coordinate our response to potential threats. When the brain perceives danger, it can activate the body’s stress-response systems and turn our attention toward whatever might be threatening us.
This response is incredibly useful when we’re facing a genuine emergency. The problem arises when the brain begins treating a situation that is relatively safe as though it poses an immediate threat. For someone with a fear of flying, for example, the sound of an airplane engine might trigger an intense stress response before the plane has even left the runway. Someone with dental anxiety, on the other hand, might experience a racing heart while sitting in a waiting room despite knowing their upcoming appointment is a routine cleaning.
These reactions aren’t necessarily a reflection of what someone believes about a situation. They can arise from learned associations, negative experiences, and the brain’s attempts to anticipate danger for protection. In other words, knowing that something is safe doesn’t always make it feel safe. That disconnect between what we know and what our nervous system experiences can make phobias especially frustrating to deal with.
How Neurofeedback & Brainspotting Can Help
For anxiety and phobias, neurofeedback training targets patterns of brain activity to help people develop stronger emotional regulation, reduce excessive activation of these fear networks, and respond more flexibly to stressful situations. Brainspotting is based on the understanding that the brain and body have natural capacities for processing distressing experiences. By helping individuals access and process emotions and sensations associated with these experiences, Brainspotting may reduce emotional distress and support a greater sense of calm within the body.
When used in tandem, Neurofeedback and Brainspotting therapies can help leave the ghosts in October, even if that routine cleaning is in November.
Want to learn more about how neurofeedback can help with phobias and anxiety? Schedule your free consultation call with AllNeuro Pathways to hear how we help reduce fear responses and increase flexibility of the brain!
Want to hear about brainspotting and how that might be a useful modality for you? Contact Elliant Counseling to set up a free consult with a therapist and learn how Brainspotting can help!