The Alimond Show
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The Alimond Show
Dawn Perez - Your Brain Can Change: One Therapist's Journey into Neurofeedback
What happens when computer science meets psychology? A revolutionary approach to healing the brain emerges. This fascinating conversation with our guest Dawn Perez, explores neurofeedback therapy—a powerful but surprisingly little-known intervention that's been transforming lives for over 40 years.
Born from personal tragedy and professional curiosity, Dawn shares how neurofeedback creates lasting change by teaching the brain to recognize and reward healthy patterns. Unlike traditional therapies that require conscious effort, this "passive training" allows the brain to heal itself through real-time feedback delivered through sounds, visuals, and games.
The technology is remarkable. Using QEEG brain mapping, practitioners create a personalized approach for each client, sometimes targeting deep brain structures like the amygdala and anterior cingulate—areas critical for emotional regulation and cognitive function. But what makes this approach truly revolutionary is its integration of brain and body. By combining neurofeedback with breath training, red light therapy, and hyperbaric oxygen treatment, practitioners address the whole system rather than isolated symptoms.
Most compelling are the stories of transformation. From children with trauma histories to veterans with PTSD, clients experience profound shifts—panic attacks disappearing, sleep improving, and attention stabilizing. The goal is always permanent change, helping clients reach a point where, as our guest beautifully phrases it, they can "let the world be their positive reward."
Ready to discover what your brain might be capable of with the right feedback? This conversation might just change how you think about mental health and healing forever.
All right, welcome Dawn. Thank you, how are you so happy to be here? Yeah, so the first question I have for you is just if you could take me back to kind of what got you into counseling and neurofeedback.
Speaker 2:My family of origin of my brother specifically, who had troubles with some things in life that were obstacles and he never really got the help that he needed. Unfortunately, he did take his life at some point and I think that was the initial, you know, thrust of we have to do more, you know, and I wanted to seek that out Didn't initially go into counseling but I ended up here through a need and interest in pursuing therapies that are not the typical ones, because the typical ones didn't help and I think we need to seek other choices and interventions. So neural feedback became something that one of my professors in my counseling program challenged us with finding something new, and I ended up going to this meeting and the presenter was a neural feedback provider and it was like the lights went off and it was like aha provider and it was like the lights went off and it was like aha, you know, because I had actually been in the field of computer science, computers back in the 80s, which we didn't call IT back then, but it would have been that now.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. Kind of married, two things that I appreciated and wanted to have passion about. That's great.
Speaker 1:I love when things come together so seamlessly like that and you feel like you've found your calling really Exactly. That's beautiful. For someone who's never heard of neurofeedback before, how would you describe the transformation it can create?
Speaker 2:in someone's life. It's amazing, and sometimes we have some aha movements that are like, wow, did we do that? Sometimes it takes a long, long time. What we're actually doing is training the brain using positive rewards, and they come in auditory, like beeps, sounds, or visual. What is positive is a brightening or a reward of a game playing or something like that. The brain changes to move into a more positive balance, and that's when we start seeing the changes in people. It's a type of therapy that's actually been around for 40 years. It's not new. It's been well-researched and still people haven't heard of it, so I think it's. You know, anytime I have a chance to talk about neurofeedback to a population of people who are listening, I'm excited to do so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and candidly, I've never. I had never heard of it until I kind of looked up like your website and neurofeedback and everything like that and it's so fascinating. So it's great that you're getting the word out. You've integrated some cutting edge tools like Violet, AlphaStim and Loretta. How do you decide which tools to use for each client and what makes your approach different from traditional therapy?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a really good question. We augment traditional therapy Anyone who has been doing talk therapy or trying to go that means or taking pharmaceuticals, which we work with as well, not opposed to that. But we're not a pharmaceutical intervention, so we usually think of ourselves as the third leg to the tripod. If there's other things going on, then we can help other things and support that. So the types of devices or software that you're talking about there are from working on the surface of the brain. We do a QEEG. It gives us a brain map of each individual who comes into our office and then we can compare that to databases. The databases use the Loretta's or S Loretta to come up with a mapping system and then it tells us where that person might be different, uniquely everybody's different. But then this kind of norm we create as a database of maybe 20 to 100 people where they are normed as they're averaged together. Each individual isn't normal, because who is? And that would be a boring situation.
Speaker 2:So we work with the individual, based on their own brain themselves, and so I choose what that they need by looking at their map and talking to them and listening to them, and sometimes, you know, we can go straight to a full head training, which is 19 channels, 19 placements on the site, on their heads of electrodes and they read and it's a mathematical way of detecting what's going on with deep structure.
Speaker 2:So that's S lauretta, so we can get down to the amygdala, we can get down to the hip paracampus, we can get to the anterior cingulate, which is where a lot of things are living in terms of stuckness, so we can penetrate the areas of the brain that really format thinking processes or or anxiety, might live, or add, and that's kind of cool, that's really cool. But sometimes we work with kiddos that come in who are very young and to do a full capping is inappropriate because it's gets their excitatory systems kind of like you know. So we have to start slow, so we'll just do one or two leads on the top of the head and we have several different things we can choose to do that approach. So it really depends on the individual and what we're trying to achieve with each person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. I feel like a lot of times with medicine or, yeah, like in the medical field, things can be kind of a one size fits all approach and that just we're finding that that doesn't really work for everyone and it's not great for patients to come in and feel like they're getting forced into like a mold of like one size fits all when it comes to their care. So this is really incredible In terms of, like, your team culture and your clinical values. What values are non-negotiable when it comes to how your team serves clients at Biofeedback works?
Speaker 2:well, I am thrilled and blessed with a great team of people and it's so interesting who comes into our therapeutic intervention via their story as well, so usually driven by similar passion, right, so, um, but lately the, the younger folks who are coming in.
Speaker 2:Who are they?
Speaker 2:They do teching, which means they don't decide the protocols, but they can apply them and work with the client, have had neuroscience degrees and then they want to get into these fields that we are now calling biohacking, and we know that there's devices and other things out there that are being developed to create this same sort of engineering of our whole biology, and so the team has gone from.
Speaker 2:You know people who are passionate and people who are, like, so intellectually stimulated by all of the things that the brain can do, and they come equipped with what each part of the brain has, purpose, and you know knowing what amplitudes are and bandwidths, and I mean, for a therapist, none of this was taught in my basic counseling, you know, which is all about how to diagnose people and how they're thinking and and how to help them with cognitive, behavioral approaches or or similar type. But, uh, that it falls perfectly into our skill set because you know we need to talk to people and understand them individually. So as a team, we just you know, have case conferences all the time. We like to talk about our clients. We work with them together as opposed to an individual relationship.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So what makes someone an especially great fit to work at Biofeedback Works? Not just in terms of qualifications, but their character and their mindset.
Speaker 2:People who relate to others well, who find that they can be empathetic, obviously, but also got to be smarty pants, got to know what it is that, um, you can kind of make connections with, and how to work software, how to be in this tech world which, um, you know, my children will tell me that I am not, but I I do a lot of tech. They don't realize it, but, you know, most of the people coming in now are well equipped with, uh, you know, just an array of things. Now AI is coming into it and that's exciting. Not that I'm training with AI, but we're utilizing it to express what it is our needs are and just to seek out, you know, like other professionals that are doing this as well, and more information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome In terms of kind of client empowerment, holistic care. Why is it so important to treat the brain and body as a unified system in your practice?
Speaker 2:So what we've been talking about in terms of neurofeedback is, I always think of, from the neck up, because it's the EEG, it's our electronic component of our systems, and so we're measuring, really, the electricity output of the brain. But from the neck down is the body part right, and so we do provide general biofeedback, which is breathing. And again, because we feel like people get a lot of education you can Google anything these days you can be told different types of breathing box breathing, nose breathing, blah, blah, blah. But what I love to do is project that what their body is doing while they're trying to breathe for them on a screen, and that's the, that's the loop and the biofeedback part of it.
Speaker 2:So many times people will say, well, I try meditative breathing all the time, but it doesn't really work. Or you know they have, they're in, they panic, but they don't, they're not able to use the breathing techniques to create less panic situations. So this is a tool for us to be able to let them reflect how well their breathing is affecting their body and we measure what their stress level is as they're breathing so they can actually bring it down. So it's the combination of those two that helps with add. It helps with ptsd, it helps with panic, anxiety, uh, all kinds of things. So combination of the breathing which is the body.
Speaker 2:I also have a red light room so that takes down inflammation and that is body wide or a full body approach, um, which we were using it before covid struck, uh, but got into it big time after covid because then it was very evident that this inflammation of our bodies and once it goes into the brain, creates all kinds of behavioral issues for people. Yeah, we knew that, but the world didn't understand it and now. So infrared light is just one technique and there's we use frequencies of all different colors also to, you know, kind of biohack the brain and I also have a hyperbaric chamber, so, and that's another way of helping integrate what happens with the oxygen and the brain cells and the neurons get excited with more oxygen but, also integrated into the system body itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. I feel like a lot of times people think about hyperbaric chambers and red light therapy. Is these like these, like influencer wellness tools that aren't really like accessible to normal people or useful for like mental health and things like that as much as like their physical health? But I really love how you bring those all into the same space because it really does make that difference. How does transformation look to you when a client finishes their work with your team?
Speaker 2:look to you when a client finishes their work with your team. So what we're looking for is permanent change. That's our goal always. So when somebody comes in, we try and assess what does that look like for you? Because somebody can say I'm anxious and we diagnosed oh, you have generalized anxiety and whatever code it is. That's different for each individual too. How does it affect them? Is what my interest is. And then so we try to measure and come up with some way of articulating and agreeing with here's where you come in. What does it mean to be less anxious or OCD? What does it mean to be less? You know, because probably we're not going to extinguish, we have to live with some anxiety, exactly. So we have to learn to manage what we have. And so our way of seeing this through, and it may take 20 sessions, it may take 40 sessions.
Speaker 2:I have some county contracts with kiddos who have had some pretty severe PTSD. They've been in foster homes, they've been abused, there's all kinds of things, or they're just trying to get fit into the educational system appropriately. They can, you know kids on the spectrum. They can be up to 100 plus sessions. It doesn't have to be, but we're willing to work with people as long as they are willing to come in. But at some point we all agree we need to take a break. Do other therapies or, you know, move on. Let the world be their positive reward. So then we kind of talk about it as we go along.
Speaker 2:So every several sessions, every time they come in, we're asking what have you seen? What changes are you witnessing? And sometimes it's nothing, sometimes people can't really assess their own. But then we'll sit at the end and people I don't really know if I've changed that much, but we'll say when you came in, you said you had two pan attacks a week. Oh, I haven't had a pan attack in a month. You know, I'm like I think that's a good thing, right. And they're like yeah, oh, wow, or I'm sleeping. I didn't even realize I'm sleeping. I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 2:A therapist in us helps them recognize their movement and um. And then we ask them to you know, if they can not stop completely, but stop with like taking. If they're coming in twice a week, which is what the standard research tells us is how you should start and go once a week, then go twice a month, because I want them to feel ownership of this. I don't want them to feel like this is a crutch, you know. So as long as they feel like they do not have any slippage back, you know their brain is in the right direction, then you know they can go and seek their own positive reward in life. You know, after that.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that you've said let the world be their positive reward. That's just such a beautiful sentiment, so, and it's very true, and they need to feel in control as well and like they're still a part of the world, um, even though they're going through these struggles or whatever brings them in. So, yeah, that's incredible. Um, in terms of your business growth and vision, how has your practice evolved since you started and what's your bigger vision for the next five years?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. We started with just like two rooms, doing, you know, two therapists or a tech and a therapist. I started out as a tech actually, I started out as a tech actually and so we've grown to four treatment rooms, having these auxiliary kind of devices like the. I have a room. It's a closet. I turned it into a room with a big infrared light, several infrared lights in there, so you can kind of bathe yourself in it. The oxygen chamber is kind of big so we have have space for that um and beyond that um, you know, I would.
Speaker 2:I'm very interested in what's going on with some of the things that we're having a hard time diagnosing. So I like working with um doctors who are maybe more functional medicine in their approach and doing blood work tests and really looking at maybe even genome. We've been involved with documenting hope and doing some research with some kiddos and they went through genetic testing and evaluating where everything else in their body isn't giving them the serotonin or the chemical production that they needed to to trip the wire and get things going in their brain. So I would like to get in and involve myself with more groups like that. Either bring them into the office or just have stronger connections so that some people can take supplements, and that can be a game changer. Nutrition is huge and I don't talk about nutrition with people enough because it's it's not.
Speaker 1:It's outside my clinical range, but, if you know, I would like to have somebody that maybe pushes in as part of the team who can answer questions for people and put them on a better you know track in terms of things like that yeah, I was gonna say that this feels what you do feel so closely tied to integrative medicine and that kind of world as someone who's been to those types of doctors before and like especially what you're saying with nutrition, like I've seen things about like gut health really affecting the brain. So, yeah, hopefully in the next five years there's some way to like partner with an integrative medicine doctor, doctor, like bring that, bring that in in the way that you want, because that's really that's incredible, that's really exciting and hopefully there's some more research coming out always research.
Speaker 2:It's the moving field it's very exciting to get into yeah, um, let's see.
Speaker 1:How do you balance innovation and neurofeedback with maintaining a warm, human-centered experience for each client?
Speaker 2:Every therapist seems to have a different approach. I think some people who are very scientific have maybe a less of a personal touch, maybe of that personal touch maybe. But we just try to balance those two things. The tech is so important to us and it's evolving all the time and the challenge there is to keep being on top of that as there are new components of things happening the people can access by themselves, like the, the, the iWatch or the Whoop or the rings and and knowing what's good and what's you know, kind of doing the sounding good but not necessarily evaluating people appropriately.
Speaker 2:So there's some technology out there that we look into for our clients and say, yeah, that's a, that's a good, honest piece of equipment that could help you. Remote training is something that people are trying to get more at-home use, so we do provide that with certain clients. But now you can buy your own equipment and I think that can be difficult to manage. So it's just this evolving thing that has legs and arms, like an octopus, so we have to kind of keep track of the tentacles, so it sounds a little bit tough, but I'm sure you're doing an amazing job.
Speaker 1:What would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about neurofeedback and what do you want them to understand about it have?
Speaker 2:about neurofeedback and what do you want them to understand about it? That is, it's not woo-woo science. It actually is founded on what makes a whole lot of sense, and the idea of positive reward is used throughout our lives in so many ways. So it doesn't seem to me a reach. But when people come in they're very skeptical, you know, about how does this really work. It's called a passive training, so we just say bring your brain in and sit in the chair, and so they don't really have to work hard. We're kind of conditioned that we're supposed to work so hard to get something done, and we do have protocols that require people to be more active in it people to be more active in it. But I think that the best way to encourage people to improve and go into the future and do the things that they need to do for themselves is just to stand behind them and support them Exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay, your background includes work with underserved populations and veterans. How has this shaped your mission today?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a military brat and I had the good fortune of hiring vets, uh, as therapists. Who were was a social worker, uh, is a social worker and um, uh, an LPC. So we all sort of have this idea of what it of change. Change is good. Change has always been powerful in our lives. We move places, we meet new friends, um. So maybe that's an underlying you know thing that works in terms of this kind of you know evolution, um, but the and I'm sorry I lost track of oh, just your background.
Speaker 2:My background, yeah, so yeah, the idea of being in a family that had, you know, service my dad was Air Force, you know, it's kind of in your blood and PTSD and what we have, not to be political, but what we have as a nation asked of our service peoples and when we create that devastating effect of after the war, what's left and sometimes we have handled it very poorly, so to be there to support that group of people. Actually, there's so much of what we do is started in the research at Bethesda or wherever the hospitals are yeah.
Speaker 2:Naval one here, but so we learn from that. We bring it in one. One thing that we are doing also is called accelerated, accelerated resolution therapy, which is kind of like an emdr again that was developed in from the military to or not it's developed and more to be used with the military folks for PTSD and so anyway, art is also working with the brain, because when we can connect the brain processing centers to our memory we can reprocess big traumas and calm down our body. So I think that kind of answers that question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, all right. Well, is there anything else that you wanted to touch on that I didn't touch on with these questions, or anything you wanted to ask some really good questions.
Speaker 2:Um, I think that, um, I just wish more people could be more confident, find us, um and you know I'm still surprised when she was. I never heard of this before, so I would. I would like more people, perhaps through this podcast, to be able to go oh, I'm going to Google that I'm going to find, you know, find out more information and and just come in and start asking questions. I'd love to, you know, help in any way possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I can tell you with absolute certainty, if I were to hear this podcast, I would immediately you know, google everything, google you and learn some amazing things. So it was such a privilege to get to talk to you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for inviting me in. I appreciate it so much.