by Lynette Louise, A.K.A. The Brain Broad
While very unfortunate, people do deny the lived experience of another on a regular basis.
As I previously mentioned, I specialize in autism. And if there was ever a population wherein lived experience is constantly denied, it is this one. People immediately polarize the minute the word “vaccine” is mentioned and parents who want to share the story of their child’s vaccine reaction are forced to hide the truth of their lived experience. Rather than be listened to, these parents are shunned. They often respond by knuckling down into the idea that vaccines alone cause autism. Meanwhile, the parents whose child’s autism was evident before any vaccinations were ever given scream and fight against anti-vaxers, claiming that these parents are distracting the scientists from doing the real work. People begin to choose which camp they are in and the lived experience of all parties gets lost in the battle.
It’s the battle that stops the information gathering. ~Lynnette Louise
We should not be polarized into oppositional groups. We should be cooperatively looking for the sameness in each of these stories. Polarizing perpetuates propaganda and does nothing for discovery. This is the same type of mutual distraction the coffee drinkers use when they insist that wine drinkers are bad, and vice versa. It is also the same type of polarization that occurs in every field or population wherein two or more main approaches to problem solving face off against each, for no other reason than to prove that they are right.
In my opinion there are no answers for everyone, there are just answers that fit some and not others.
With that in mind I will share a few neurofeedback observations based on the lived experiences of my clients.
1- Vertigo can often be stopped with high frequency reward training at c3,cz, c4.
2- Children with autism can often train for up to an hour and receive great benefits.
3- Cz can exacerbate and/or calm excessive erectile fascinations in people with sensory challenges.
4- The arousal model and my decision to high frequency train on the dopaminergic pathway– neural pathways in the brain that transmit the neurotransmitter dopamine from one region of the brain to another — helped for dementia and depression, cognition and some movement in Parkinson’s. But the arousal method wasn’t enough to get the amount of change I now see and the ten plus year prevention of deterioration in my clients.
5- My son and several clients with severe ASD experience a calmed body with increased sensation in the mouth when I difference train 0z-fp2 @ 12-15. This awareness began as a happy accident and is the rediscovery of that my old footage of my son.
I could share more but this is enough to make the point that it is important to have a science based model to choose protocols, methods and equipment. However, it is also important to be open to just plain using what works. In my opinion, lived experience trumps.
Early in I was taught that healthy brains are flexible, they do not get stuck in any state or in the need for mood altering substances. I would have to add that for any field or social group to be healthy they must also be flexible, not stuck in the dogma of any particular model but free to dance among the possible solutions from group to group.
This, I believe, is what it means to embrace difference. And it’s an embrace worth perfecting because the treasures in this embrace are filled with all the different correct answers for each person in need.
(In case you missed the first parts of this series:
Part One – Neurofeedback, the Beginning and Back
Part Two – How to Share Knowledge)