Post-traumatic stress disorder is what happens when the brain's survival response doesn't stand down after a terrifying experience — a single event, or years of them. Flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and numbness aren't weakness; they're a protection system stuck in the on position.
Because trauma lives so deeply in the body and the brain's alarm circuitry, purely verbal approaches sometimes stall. Our work adds a physiological path to recovery.
Signs it may be time to reach out
- Re-experiencing: intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks
- Feeling constantly on guard, jumpy, or unable to relax
- Avoiding reminders — places, people, conversations — of what happened
- Emotional numbness, detachment, or a foreshortened sense of the future
- Sleep disruption, irritability, or difficulty concentrating
How we treat PTSD
A qEEG brain map shows how your brain's threat-processing systems are currently operating. Guided by that map, neurofeedback trains the over-aroused patterns toward regulation — gently, without requiring you to relive the trauma in order to make progress. Biofeedback builds body-level safety skills (breath, heart-rate variability), and, when talk therapy would help, we connect you with trauma-informed psychotherapists in the community who help you process experiences at a pace you control.
What to expect
Safety and pacing come first — you set the speed. Sessions are 60 minutes at either our Oakland or Santa Rosa clinic. Many patients find that as their baseline arousal settles, sleep improves first, and the rest of recovery gets easier from there.