Cliff’s Experience

Information about me (Cliff Heegel) that you might want to know–

I was trained initially in neurofeedback by Sue Othmer and Siegfried Othmer (Sue’s husband). Sigfriend is one of the authors of ADD- The 20-Hour Solution. I have since studied neurofeedback under several other folks and I participate in a global network of case consultation– there are a few hundred of us learning from each other via the internet. I have been doing neurofeedback training in the Memphis area since 2001.

Neurofeedback makes up about 1/3 of my practice– I do traditional individual therapy and couple counseling as well. I have officially been in the counseling and psychotherapy business, one way or another, since around 1984. I was involved in personal growth-human potential activities for many years before that.

I am strongly biased toward non-labeling (although labels are required to get special services at school and to get insurance reimbursement), so I am more likely to talk to you about strengths and weaknesses rather than figuring out which diagnosis to lump you or your child  gets lumped into. People with the wildest most unruly brains can become successful and happy despite the school system and despite the psychiatric system. However, many of them suffer untold damage to their self-esteem and to their social, educational, and financial attainment because they are impaired by some sort of “brain glitch”. I can help improve brain glitches and thereby help people travel through the educational, social, and legal systems more smoothly and happily.

My bias is also strongly in favor of minimal medication and using natural solutions (like diet, well-researched nutritional supplements, and exercise). I am not happy with the “meducation” system that seems to be growing where schools manage challenging kids through pharmaceuticals. I think most kids and adults have the abilities to live just fine without powerful drugs flowing through their brains.

However, medication has a definite place, and I am not so narrow as to think that neurofeedback is the only solution for everything. Medication saves lives and sometimes the right medication seems to be the only thing that can help a person maintain “normalcy”. Medication is unquestionably required in certain situations. I do not  advocate stopping medication without physician supervision– this can be fatal, for example, in the case of certain seizure disorders.

I am not a great fan of our current educational system but I understand that it is the one we have and we have to work with it. I have had 3 kids go through it and I have had many meetings with teachers, administrators, etc, trying to figure out how to negotiate the system, obtain services, and help my children do their best. I appreciate how tough it is being a parent.

Good sites to visit about neurofeedback are eegspectrum.com and eeginfo.com.

If you don’t yet know about him, I strongly recommend that you check out Mel Levine’s website and his books. You can find him at http://www.drmellevine.com. Dr. Levine also has a cool site at http://www.bringingupminds.org/.

Let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, regarding Neurofeedback training.