Developmental Trauma, caused by childhood abuse and neglect, is becoming increasingly understood in Australia, along with the recognition that its early treatment can avoid myriad subsequent problems and costs to individuals, families and society.
The upcoming International Childhood Trauma Conference (Melbourne 31 July – 5 August) will address the prevalence of childhood trauma in Australia and what can be done to address the suffering and huge social costs.
In Australia 2.5 million adults report they have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as children.
This is a serious social, health and economic issue in Australia. The NSW government Forecasting Future Outcomes report (2018) found that 7% of the state's population would use 50% of the state's resources by the age of 40, with analysis indicating the likely cause to be developmental trauma.
People with Developmental Trauma often have many complex emotional, cognitive and physical illnesses that last throughout their lives, notoriously difficult to treat with the usual mental health treatments of pharmaceuticals or talking psychotherapies. For the more severe cases, estimated to be 40% of all cases, these methods have not been very effective. However, evidence is emerging that all sufferers, including the more severe end of the spectrum, can be helped with neurofeedback and other novel treatments, accompanied by the ability to now map brain activity with Quantitative Electroencephalograms (qEEGs).
Neurofeedback helps trauma affected people normalise control of their brain and body, and teaches them how to calm their nervous system, by measuring and controlling their own brainwave patterns – in a way that they can see on a screen.
It works through re-patterning – the person watches a special computer game or video that only responds when the brain adjusts its activity to match what the therapist has determined on their computer. Nothing is done to the brain – it finds its own solution to re-pattern, and this has been used safely for many years. With training, the brain more easily and frequently produces the desired brainwave activity leading to improved self-regulation and reduction in symptoms.
Neurofeedback has been used effectively in Australia for the treatment of refugees who have experienced torture and trauma at STARTTS (NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors), and by Associate Professor Roger Gurr, Clinical Director of the headspace Early Psychosis program at Penrith, with young people with treatment resistant schizophrenia. One of STARTTS' clients is an enthusiastic advocate for neurofeedback and is happy to speak to media.
A Canadian expert on treating Developmental Trauma and PTSD, Professor Ruth Lanius, will be in Australia next week as a keynote speaker at the International Childhood Trauma Conference, organised by the Australian Childhood Foundation. Through her clinical work, research and teaching, she is paving the way for the recognition of neurofeedback in the trauma field. She has also researched the impact of trauma on the Canadian indigenous community.
Professor Lanius is a warm and compelling speaker who can discuss the significance of Developmental Trauma and PTSD, and the social costs of not addressing it or translating the research into effective treatments.
She is Professor of Psychiatry and the director of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research unit at the University of Western Ontario. She researches the neurobiology of PTSD and treatment with various methods, including medication, psychotherapy and neurofeedback. She is the author of more than 100 research papers and has recently published the book Healing the traumatized self: consciousness, neuroscience, treatment with Paul Frewen.
Her randomised, controlled trial of alpha-rhythm EEG neurofeedback in PTSD has shown decreased symptoms and restored default mode and salience network connectivity.
But access to neurofeedback treatment is very limited in Australia and few are trained to deliver it.
Local psychiatrist and advocate Roger Gurris making the case here for more training for professionals and more pilot programmes using neurofeedback and other novel treatments for developmental trauma, PTSD and schizophrenia. Professor Ruth Lanius can also speak to this.
Further notes:
What is QEEG?
- qEEG (Quantitative Electroencephalogram), also known as 'brain mapping', is a non-invasive assessment method that records brain electrical activity in the form of brain wave patterns. QEEG assessments are used to identify patterns in brain activity that may help to understand clients' psychological, cognitive and emotional symptoms and assist in making well-informed decisions about their treatment.
Benefits of brain function assessment through QEEG
- Comparing a person's EEG with a normative database shows up the differences in brain wave activity that need to be treated, to return the brain to more normal functioning.
What's needed in Australia
- What's needed in Australia, to really support young people to escape the devastating impact of developmental trauma, and to be able to live their lives independently, is funding for pilot services that can provide new brain treatments and document their effectiveness.
- We need to build the evidence base and train more health care workers and mental health professionals in how to analyse Quantitative EEGs and how to implement Neurofeedback and other emerging novel treatments.
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