I am not an expert on neurofeedback, we looked at it for our eldest and we are still thinking about it but both the cost and more importantly the time commitment are a problem for us at the moment.
DeeDee while I agree that there are all sorts of snake oil treatments out there and that it is wise to be cautious of a new treatment that claims to cure "everything". I think we also need to keep in mind that we are quite willing to accept that psychologists diagnose and treat all manner of psychological conditions, we don't scorn physiotherapists for treating both necks AND knees. All of the the conditions that I have heard NFP suggested for are neurological dysfunctions, and the idea is to teach your own brain how self regulate better, it makes sense to me that there are a variety of different ways that could be applied and be useful.
From what I understand (which is probably horribly simplistic), the idea is to first asses if there are any problem areas via a full qEEG, then treat by visually showing the client the output of the problematic part of their brain and offer computer based "reward" when they manage to change that pattern to a more normal one. So one person may be training one part of their brain (say ADHD related) while the person in the next room may be targeting something else entirely (say anxiety related).
That said choosing a skilful professional seems to be of paramount importance to me. There were some things that annoyed us about the neuropsych we saw who offered neurofeedback, and that may be part of why we have not proceeded yet. One thing that I DID like is that he was very up to date on a wide range of current research on NFP and was very open about his own success rates. He was for example quite willing to tell us that while there was someone in the US publishing great success rates for treating dyslexia, but that he had not been able to replicate those success rates himself, and would not treat our DDs dyslexia with NFP at that point in time...
I was also quite fascinated by the neuropsych's explanation that one's basic qEEG pattern is "born" and doesn't change. That they can tell who is prone to post traumatic stress BEFORE the stressor hits, likewise depression, ADHD, etc. I didn't fully grasp how that pattern worsens when "active" or is improved by treatment. But he was quite clear that a person's pattern is always there to see, and also that qEEG is quite reliable for assessing which type of ADHD medication is most likely to work based on the brainwave pattern (ie stimulant or one of the other forms of treatment). I know that the paediatrian my friend uses for her son uses qEEG to help assess whether medication is likely to be of benefit and which to use (he does this after diagnosis). Our neuropsyc, of course, wanted our DD to do neurofeedback and not take medication but was quite clear that if we were to try medication it should be stimulants.
