Introduction to Biofeedback and Counseling:

 

      Welcome to The Minnesota Biofeedback Clinic. People work with biofeedback to learn how they change their calm attention or stress when a computer tells them they are making more or less calm attention with a white noise or sound. It is clinically proven to be as effective as medication for attention problems, anxiety, and pain. The State of Minnesota endorses biofeedback for healing these problems. Biofeedback devices are provided to people who need to meet online because of personal needs or because of where they live. You can do this with online counseling or in person in the Twin Cities or in Duluth.

 

     Adults and children can use biofeedback as we talk, do mindfulness exercises, while doing art, games or other things when we meet in person or online. People are also taught how to do it on their own while they are sitting in quiet or while they play a game, watch a movie, do art, listen to music, or do something they enjoy. The State of Minnesota Health Plans and other insurances cover these services and so do many others. We offer brain based exercise, mindfulness, counseling and education for adults and children with a range of strengths, abilities and needs. 

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About Biofeedback:

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     People can get live feedback including music or movie volume that tells them when they are improving what they are doing with their minds and brains. We know what will be helpful to change because we know what brain behavior is healthy that we can see in the brain monitoring. The person doing the biofeedback learns how they are changing their feelings and mental states to keep the music or movie volume up. Then they keep practicing, but it is like learning to ride a bike. People don't forget how to do it easily once they have learned. As it feels better clients get better at doing it on their own and applying it to daily life. Clients remember how they do it like learning to ride a bike.

 

     People do biofeedback with counseling for the same reasons that most people go to counseling. I am educated in marriage and family therapy and have taught to clinical staff at various agencies. We accept insurance including Blue Cross, Medica, UCare, Cigna, all of the State of Minnesota insurance plans, TriCare and military insurances, PreferredOne, ValueOptions, United Behavioral Health, and many others.

 

     The feedback tool is called biofeedback or neurofeedback. Insurance is accepted for office visits and covers biofeedback as a part of typical healthcare. With holistic counseling we work on understanding and changing mental behavior for happiness, mental health or performance, and to heal or restore potential. 

 

Here are some examples of what can be helped:

 

• Attention is improved because people learn to make more relaxed or more focused attention. The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses it as a treatment for ADHD. It also works for performance and astronauts use it in training along with musicians and olympic athletes.

• Anxiety is reduced because people learn to quiet their minds. The brain is healed also. 

• Trauma is healed as people learn to "put things away" and let go more easily.

• Depressed is changed because people learn to change their own brain rhythm feelings.

• Pain is reduced and clients learn to stop and reduce pain feelings in their brains.

• Autism symptoms are reduced because people increase the inner awareness of soft skills and attention management.

• Migraine sufferers can learn to reduce the brain behavior leading to them and reduce or avoid migraines.

• Alcohol and chemical abuse recovery happens because people learn to make the positive feelings they want on their own.

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     Adults and children have live brain monitoring with audio or visual feedback that rewards better brain behavior in a fun and gentle way. It is researched for happiness, performance, anxiety, depression, and learning & developmental struggles like ADHD and autism. Athletes, artists, astronauts and people globally have benefited from biofeedback. Research on anxiety, autism, mood, learning, and school or work performance have proven that a lot of change is possible. There are specific results that we see in many clients on this page on the right side. The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses it for ADHD and most insurances endorse it.

 

     My name is Peter Jason Meilahn, MA. I am a psychotherapist and biofeedback practitioner who works with adults and children. My goal is to help clients gain more mental and emotional control and freedom for more wellbeing. It comes down to feeling vibrations and use of our mental abilities in a positive way. The mind is like a guitar. If the strings are too tight they will strain or break, and if they are too loose they will not play. Struggles stem from negative reactions and attachments to stress, stimuli and anxious desires. So the antidote is to change the awareness and way we react. There are many needs that biofeedback can help as a type of accelerated mindfulness training with counseling. 

 

     Along with providing therapy I am working to develop new methods and theory for working with biofeedback and life development, including healing the subconscious with psychotherapy.  I have been a guest speaker and teacher to clinicians or families at conferences from The University of Minnesota Medical Center, The Learning Disability Association of MN, The Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented, Hazelden, and various county agencies.

 

More Details About the Therapy:

 

     I wanted to write a bit more about how the approach works. And if you want the short and sweet version of what it looks like you can see a brief description in the other sections on the right or below if you are on a phone reading this. Some people like more words, so if your someone who wants more written detail please read on.

 

     If we use mindfulness in therapy where we heal personal and family patterns, or mistaken conscious and subconscious beliefs while computers tell us when we are handling stress or stimuli better, we can change the way the brain works faster and the way we shape it. Misunderstood learning or thinking styles often develop attention problems when they are not understood and nurtured in the optimum way. Or there are highly sensitive people or people who are traumatized who have a hard time letting go and being with the flow or quiet of their own minds. There are also people with developmental struggles like autism that new research and methods of biofeedback help. The symptoms change. There are various personal styles, learning styles like project based learners that do not fit into mainstream environments easily, and developmental needs that can become overwhelmed in daily or long term goals. 

 

     Biofeedback is exceptionally simple and brilliantly effective. It measures the brain's behavior and tells the person when they are doing better or worse by changing volume or screen brightness on music, games, movies, or screen interactions. Then clients change their brain behavior to get the reward back or keep it going. I then help the client apply these abilities daily to heal and optimize their lives. We know what most mental struggles and mental wellness or high performance brain behaviors look like from research. I do counseling to teach mindfulness skills while also working through subconscious struggles and lifestyle issues, all while working through common stages of change. The stages of change for struggles and improvement are often described as pre-contemplation (or pre- awareness), contemplation, preparation, action, mastery, termination, and then getting past any repeated patterns. 

 

     This type of therapy is changing mental health services because it is so successful. For example; biofeedback and psychotherapy is supported by insurance for anxiety, it has been used for PTSD in Veteran's Administration Hospitals, it is as effective as stimulants for ADHD and the results have been proven to stay 6 and 12 years after, it has completely healed dissociative identity disorder clients, it is 80% effective in preventing relapse for alcoholism in the first year (compared to 25-30% success with 12 step models), it helps personality struggles so much that The American Psychological Association investigated early research results for fraud, and autism symptoms are reduced by 40% or more in some cases. Olympic athletes, CEOs, artists, astronauts and people globally have benefited from biofeedback training as well for improving already good or great performance.         

 

For more information please contact me at petermeilahn "@" yahoo.com or (651) 347-8172. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Peter Meilahn, MA