Neurofeedback.

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Neurofeedback is a drug-free therapeutic intervention to treat Anxiety, Depression, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Brain training involves helping the brain correct brain wavelengths to operate at optimal levels.

Treatment involves having electrodes applied to the scalp; the electrodes are linked to a computer based program that assesses brainwave activity. A client typically interacts with a movie or video game in which promotion of optimal brain waves is enhanced and those brain waves that are not optimal are diminished. The brain is an active participant in the healing process. The computer- based program often uses sound or visual signals to retrain and correct brain signals. Check out Neurofeedback as a complementary therapy in brain training.

We are stronger together

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We are social creatures, we are biologically wired to develop social bonds.  We are strongest when we learn inter-dependency, the ability to seek connection and utilize resources to help us problem solve while developing stronger concepts of self within healthy systems, family, partnerships, and communities. The neurochemical, oxytocin, helps us to seek connection, to reach out to others for support when we are feeling overwhelmed. Isolation limits our potential to access opportunity, moving against our basic drives for connection and support. Freud was misled when he professed sexual and aggressive drives are the most powerful instincts, the primal drives of human interactions are instead for attachment.  Darwin was misinterpreted and his information inaccurately used  as supporting the idea of only the fittest survive within a biological system and the system is set up and governed by competition for resources.  Darwin expressed an understanding of Fitness, reproductive fitness, and understood social skills played a huge part in that fitness. Fairness, equity, and interdependence frame the interactions within biological systems. John Bowlby reminds us social bonds are our most basic and primitive instincts, the basis of our survival, wired into our primal brains; the gut, heart, and cranial brains. Social bonds are the threads that weave together healthy attachments, connections, and our ability to relate to one another, to help one another, to develop the social courage we need to survive. It is time for a collective rewriting of the limited ideas misconstrued from Darwin and Freud that have narrowed our ability to recognize the importance of our needs for attachment, our needs to learn how to be vulnerable, and to gain strength through the reciprocity of care taking and sharing of emotional resonance, emotional resources, the energy in motion, that is infinite in its ability to create healthy  and secure relationships. 

True Parent http://trueparent.com/ask-the-parent-5/

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Got a question too embarrassing to ask anyone else? Send it to asktheparent@trueparent.com, and we’ll find an expert parent to answer it for you! This month we have licensed professional counselorHolly Shumway dishing out the real talk.

We’re a “Santa Claus household,” but our 10-year-old son is beginning to express doubts, while our six-year-old is still solid in her belief. Keeping up appearances was fun at first, but now my husband and I are just feeling like liars. How do we gently break the news to the 10-year-old while not destroying the magic for our six-year-old? Or should we continue the charade forever?

—Better Not Pout, Better Not Lie

Sharing Santa with your children is a magical time. It seems your son is casting doubts and causing you to reconsider your choices in fostering your family tradition. Before you let go of the tradition and the magic, consider this: As a developing concrete thinker, your son might be doing exactly what he needs to do.

At age 10, your son’s thinking is binary: real or make-believe, right or wrong. Concrete thinkers believe in things they can see and touch. Expressing doubt doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t believe in Santa—it may simply mean he’s beginning to develop discernment. Doubts are as necessary to developing discernment as magical thinking is to developing imagination. Discernment offers your son the opportunity to filter an idea and arrive at his own conclusions regarding accuracy or inaccuracy.

At around age 12, his thinking will change again, allowing for more expansive thoughts without the need for visual or tactile reminders. His thoughts will become hypothetical and abstract. Believing in the unseen will not only be possible, but necessary to expand understanding and build imagination.

It’s quite possible your son has already contemplated what Christmas morning might look like if he chooses not to believe. I’ve met many a 10-year-old who says, “I do not ‘believe’ when I talk to my friends at school, but at home on Christmas Eve, it’s a whole different story.”

If your son’s doubts continue to take center stage, try not to answer a question not being asked. Deciphering what your son actually wants to know about Santa is easier when you let him share what questions he would like to have answered. Try to understand why he is expressing doubts now.

You might consider integrating more concrete ideas relative to Santa Claus by discussing St. Nicholas, the precursor to our modern Santa. Both St. Nicholas and Santa Claus have evolved though the years, timelessly growing with new ideas and more mature ways of thinking. Your family tradition might benefit from doing the same.

Instead of holding Santa within the reins of “truth” or “lie,” consider ways to expand the story to integrate your son’s new ways of thinking. It’s most likely your son will continue to practice with his newly acquired toy of discernment, while still allowing his sister the opportunity to experience the full extent of her own magical thinking.

Rest assured, Santa Claus is not overly worried about discerning 10-year-olds. Childhood happens once, imagination is ageless! (Also, the “Naughty List” never includes parents who keep the magic alive.)

Holly Shumway is a licensed professional counselor practicing in Lake Oswego. Learn more about Holly at hollyshumway.com

http://trueparent.com/ask-the-parent-5/

Winter to Spring

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This time of year can often feel like we are caught in between the sheets of two turning pages within our life narrative, the ending of the winter chapter and the beginning of the spring chapter.  Take time to intentionally consider how you might like to  transition from Winter's dream time, granting yourself permission to consider all your opportunities through the dreams of unlimited possibilities, to Spring's promise, growing forward ideas ready to germinate.  Ginger is a great herb to add to dishes during this transitional time to dry and warm up any lingering damp or chilly spaces in your emotional home.  Grow forward from here.  All is well.