It’s nice to be back to some semblance of a routine after the holidays. I had back-to-back houseguests, twelve in all if you include my husband and two younger sons who flew over from Europe. No time to even think about a blog post until now.
The guests have gone home and the glass ornaments has been put away till next year, so here’s an update of what’s been happening. Chris is seeing a psychologist for his motor tics in addition to the psychiatrist who seems to there as a placeholder only. So far, Chris has had only one appointment with him. Chris’s first and last appointment was in October. The next one is for the end of February. This is managed care, I guess. I’m not actually complaining, as the lack of attention can work in the client’s favor. The client should feel liberated enough to manage his own care. That’s my spin on it, anyway. Or, maybe his psychiatrist is busy studying neurofeedback. More about that later.
Military language seems to have made steady inroads into everyday American life over the past few years. My husband and I noted that our visits to our new family doctor are considered “encounters” according to the printed reports that we are given on leaving the clinic. “Do you think, though, if we called the office asking for an “encounter” they’d understand what we mean?” he asked rhetorically. We’ve been hearing a lot of late about government workers being “furloughed,” rather than being “sent home.” My reminder that an automatic bill payment was going to be “drafted” from my account was mind bender. Had to read and reread it several times before realizing that my account was going to be debited. In banking terms “draft” to me means to prepare a cheque, not to take money out of the account.
Chris is enjoying his new recovery program, which is a privately funded vocational training center. The vocational part is helping people with Chris’s diagnosis gain skills needed for entry level jobs in the service industry. The staff doesn’t put a cap on their expectations as to what someone is capable of achieving with their life, but the idea is to start slow and gain confidence. Chris has been going most days and often comes home dead tired. Good. It’s about time. He seems to be getting by on very little to no medication. He’s got traction under his feet. . . .
. . . if it weren’t for the motor tics that continue to plague him. The next stop for us is NEUROFEEDBACK which promises great things – a cure for all kinds of issues that make concentration and focus difficult. It works on PSTD, OCD, Tourettes, bipolar, disorder, schizophrenia, depression, etc. Neurofeedback talks a good game. If we believe the promise, it is the future of psychiatry and will turn psychiatrists into neurologists. It will complement the work Chris has been doing with Focused Listening. We’ll see how far he can run with it.
Nice to hear, the new tecovery program is keeping Chris busy. Wish v had such programs in India. I’ll hv to check if India has this Neurofeedback.
I, too, have been reading about neurofeedback lately. In my view, rewiring parts of the brain cannot compensate for an audio-processing deficit in the ear that will continue to deprive the brain — especially one half or the other depending on which ear (or both) has deficits — of the sound energy that helps to drive its functions. In my experience, most of the conditions you mention or, more likely, all of them, require a strong stream of sound energy from the right ear to the left-brain and on to the speech-production organs for the brain and body to function efficiently. Neurofeedback may or may not operate on the vagus network. If it does, I think it will be accessed obliquely rather than directly through the stapedius muscle’s input to that system and control over it. In other words, I doubt neurofeedback can fully replace music therapies or do the job of enhancing left-brain dominance that one gets with Focused Listening.
Thanks for the update, Rossa : ) I really like the review of military terms too!