| "For the past five years, the teachers have complained James wasn't focused. This year he received a glowing report card: He's attentive, focused, and organized! Compared to past reports it's almost as if they are talking about a different child, and I suppose in a sense they are! Thank You!" |
| —A West Hartford Parent | |
At Inner Act we see our clients' issues from a systems point of view - meaning that we look at symptoms and complaints in relation to systems of the body that are not properly regulating themselves. This way of understanding requires the client and the practitioner to engage in a paradigm shift – moving from the problems being seen as purely psychological (a "mental problem") to seeing them within the realm of the physiological and neuroscience (a problem with the nervous system, specifically a problem with the nervous system's ability to regulate it's level of activity and coordinate it's different parts).
The core of this new paradigm is to view the presenting symptoms as a dysregulation, literally a timing problem within the brain, that leads to different parts of the brain working at different levels of activity. This timing issue can be addressed using powerful techniques and tools such as Neurofeedback.
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The level of activity in the brain is called the level of arousal. If the whole brain is low in activity, a "low state of arousal", the person is typically close to sleep or sleeping. Conversely, someone who is excited and engaged is at a high level of arousal, and someone who is rageful or terrified is at a very high level of arousal. |
- A healthy nervous system is able to modulate and balance one's level of arousal appropriately, so that one becomes excited if challenged or threatened, or becomes tired before bed. In day to day life, your level of arousal should reflect your circumstances and your environment.
- An unbalanced nervous system can be constantly tending toward under-arousal, leading to depression or dullness, or over-arousal, leading to extremes of anger or fear, or oscillating between these, as is the case with someone who is bipolar (what used to be called manic-depressive). In addition, different parts of the brain can be operating at different levels of arousal, which can cause numerous problems as well as generally impairing one's ability to think and concentrate.
The work we engage in together involves our developing a language, so that you as a client can notice and report back any changes you see such as shifts in their attention, mood state, physiology, etc. This allows us to "steer" the work and your training. The task is to help you learn self-regulation techniques on the conscious level, and to provide the brain with feedback that will help it discover, and learn to consistently return to, a state of balanced arousal on the unconscious, autonomic level. The end result is to feel safe and relaxed, at the same time that you are highly focused and motivated, even when you are in challenging situations.
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"I started to see a reduction in the frequency of headaches,” said a 17-year-old woman who had long suffered from debilitating migraines. “I’m not depressed anymore. It’s literally changed my life.”
A 19-year-old woman suffered from severe panic attacks that made it difficult for her even to leave her home. Rae’s treatment, she said, “completely changed my life, actually. Before, in any social situation, I’d be so afraid to talk. Now, I’m not like that anymore."
And a 20-year-old vocal performance major said that before doing neurofeedback she was always distracted or anxious on stage. “I can’t stress enough how much it has changed my life completely." |
—Quotes from Inner Act clients
in a Hartford Advocate article | |
Optimizing Mental Health and Well Being 
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