The Drake Institute now offers remote treatment for ADHD, autism, and other brain-based disorders. With the help of our trained clinicians, you can get the help you need from the comfort of your home.
Learn More >>The Drake Institute now offers remote treatment for ADHD, autism, and other brain-based disorders. With the help of our trained clinicians, you can get the help you need from the comfort of your home.
Learn More >>Neurofeedback therapy is a non-invasive and non-drug treatment protocol that helps patients utilize the mind-body connection to reduce negative symptoms and improve their quality of life.
With neurofeedback, patients can learn how to self-regulate emotional responses to stressors and control physiological symptoms that excessive anger may cause. Neurofeedback training can even help patients improve their cognitive functioning.
For over 40 years, the Drake Institute has used advanced neurofeedback technology to help patients reduce symptoms related to brain-based mood disorders, including excessive anger.
This article will discuss just how neurofeedback can help with anger management.
Neurofeedback therapy is a non-invasive, non-drug treatment that helps patients gain healthier control over their brain’s functioning.
Also called EEG-Biofeedback, neurofeedback measures brainwave activity to identify areas of dysregulation that could be contributing to emotional and physiological symptoms.
Within the brain, there are multiple networks that communicate with each other. Proper communication means healthy and optimal brain functioning. Poor communication between networks can lead to reduced cognitive functioning, poor memory, lack of focus, and even outbursts of excessive anger.
Neurofeedback works to repair these communication problems by allowing patients to improve their own brainwave patterns. Improving communication pathways in the brain may allow for better focus, follow-through, and emotional regulation.
Neurofeedback therapy offers multiple benefits to patients in need of anger management assistance. This safe and effective treatment teaches patients how to utilize the mind-body connection to reduce emotional over-reactivity and specifically tantrums in children, or outbursts of anger in adults.
Here are the main benefits of neurofeedback therapy for anger management:
Neurofeedback therapy is safe and effective in treating various brain-based disorders and symptoms, including anger and other emotional issues.
Neurofeedback treatment protocols do not use drugs or medications of any kind. Likewise, no stimulation or invasive procedures are used. The only thing that neurofeedback does is measure and display the patient’s brainwaves onto a screen in an easy-to-understand form that the patient uses to improve brain functioning.
In our clinical experience for over 40 years, side effects of neurofeedback therapy are typically rare, mild, and short-lived.
Anger is a common emotional state that everyone experiences from time to time. It can be minimal or intense, varying from mild annoyance to rage.
As with other emotional states, it is marked by certain physiological symptoms. The most common physiologic anger symptoms include increased heart rate, blood pressure, and adrenaline.
Similar to anxiety or depression, anger can be brought on by various triggers. Stressful events like a disagreement, frustrating experience or disappointment can cause an angry emotional state. Childhood trauma can make you more susceptible to anger problems later in life.
Feeling anger is normal. However, anger can become a problem if it is not properly dealt with in a healthy way. Here are some indicators that anger is a problem:
When anger becomes a problem, it should be treated as soon as possible. There are several approaches to managing anger in children and adults that can lead to healthier reactions to triggers. Primary therapies include the following:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT, is a common treatment for a variety of emotional issues, including excessive anger. Guided by a professional, CBT can teach you how to identify your emotions and provide various coping skills to manage your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This results in a calmer disposition and greater control of your emotions.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a type of CBT that aims to help patients manage anger through mindfulness and emotional regulation. It also emphasizes effective communication as a way to defuse anger in a relationship setting. [i]
Family therapy can be extremely beneficial for patients whose anger negatively affects family members and relationships. By attending therapy sessions together, families can learn how to support each other in managing anger and improving communication.
Where excessive anger is in response to past trauma or abuse, psychodynamic therapy can help. This type of therapy helps patients identify the psychological causes of their anger and ways to correct associated behavior and thought patterns.
Neurofeedback can help with anger and other emotional responses. It can help patients utilize the mind-body connection to minimize excessive feelings of anger, irritation, and annoyance.
What’s more, patients can achieve this peaceful state long after treatment sessions have ended because they’ve developed self-regulation.
For over 40 years, the Drake Institute has used neurofeedback therapy to successfully treat various medical and psychiatric conditions, including ADHD, stress, anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, emotional issues, and more.
Below is a breakdown of 2 advanced treatment technologies we used alongside neurofeedback.
The first step is measuring physiologic tension levels with Biofeedback instrumentation. Through Biofeedback treatment/training, the patient can reach levels of relaxation that are very difficult to achieve and sustain without feedback. It enables patients to achieve self-regulation for improvement long after finishing treatment.
Before beginning neurofeedback therapy, we first map brain functioning to link symptoms to brain dysregulation. At the Drake Institute, we use qEEG brain mapping technology to record the patient’s brain activity. This brain map helps our Medical Director develop the most appropriate treatment protocols.
In this phase of treatment, 19 sensors are placed around the scalp in predetermined locations. The sensors measure and record the patient’s brainwave activity. Then, the results are compared with those of asymptomatic, same-age individuals in an FDA-registered reference normative database. The comparison helps us locate areas of the brain experiencing poor network communication.
Once these areas have been identified, we create a customized treatment protocol to address the dysregulation.
Neuromodulation is another approach we use in conjunction with neurofeedback therapy.
In some cases, patients may struggle to regulate their brainwave activity to reach their goals. We use neurostimulation technology to gently guide the patient’s brainwaves toward healthy patterns. Following this up with neurofeedback can enhance self-regulation.
Anger is a normal emotion that we all experience from time to time, but when it becomes a problem, life can be challenging for you and those around you. Learning to manage anger is key to living a more peaceful and relaxing life.
If you or someone you know could benefit from effective anger management, give us a call at 800-700-4233 or fill out the free consultation form.
[i] https://www.verywellmind.com/anger-management-therapy-definition-techniques-and-efficacy-5192566
If you or a family member need help, please fill out our confidential online form
Interview with Dr. David Velkoff
Seth's Story
Interview with Dr. David Velkoff
Spanish News Feature
“David F. Velkoff, M.D., our Medical Director and co-founder, supervises all evaluation procedures and treatment programs. He is recognized as a physician pioneer in using biofeedback, qEEG brain mapping, neurofeedback, and neuromodulation in the treatment of ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and stress related illnesses including anxiety, depression, insomnia, and high blood pressure. Dr. David Velkoff earned his Master’s degree in Psychology from the California State University at Los Angeles in 1975, and his Doctor of Medicine degree from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta in 1976. This was followed by Dr. Velkoff completing his internship in Obstetrics and Gynecology with an elective in Neurology at the University of California Medical Center in Irvine. He then shifted his specialty to Neurophysical Medicine and received his initial training in biofeedback/neurofeedback in Neurophysical Medicine from the leading doctors in the world in biofeedback at the renown Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. In 1980, he co-founded the Drake Institute of Neurophysical Medicine. Seeking to better understand the link between illness and the mind, Dr. Velkoff served as the clinical director of an international research study on psychoneuroimmunology with the UCLA School of Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. This was a follow-up study to an earlier clinical collaborative effort with UCLA School of Medicine demonstrating how the Drake Institute's stress treatment resulted in improved immune functioning of natural killer cell activity. Dr. Velkoff served as one of the founding associate editors of the scientific publication, Journal of Neurotherapy. He has been an invited guest lecturer at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, UCLA, Cedars Sinai Medical Center-Thalians Mental Health Center, St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, and CHADD. He has been a medical consultant in Neurophysical Medicine to CNN, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, Univision, and PBS.”
