Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. –William Butler Yeats, 1919 What’s Missing For most of the time I’ve been training brains, I’ve tried to figure out what differentiates happier, more satisfied people in any walk of life, at any age. For […]
A Different Way of Living
“Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.” Watch Out… If it makes sense to you that what you think, what you feel, how you experience yourself and the world around you all grows out of the habits developed in your brain, then you begin to recognize that changing those habits doesn’t just […]
Training to the Peak
The “normal” option As we have discussed previously, one of the most heavily-marketed products in brain-training in the 2010’s is z-score training. This so-called “scientific” and “brain-based” system proposes that by training any individual brain to shift dozens of micro-measures in the direction of a population average, it will become more effective—and especially that it […]
Toward a New Model of Brain Training
Looking in a new direction So far we have looked at brain-training from the point of view that informs most discussions of it—a pathology-based approach to “treating disorders” and making us all more “normal” so we “fit in” better and produce more. I’ve suggested that this view grows out of the fact that “neurofeedback” is […]
The Certification Lie
What is Certification In many professional fields there exist bodies of licensure or certification created to verify who has demonstrated competence in that area. Certified Public Accountants and Board-Certified Surgeons are examples. But experience teaches us that taking courses and passing exams doesn’t necessarily result in a higher level of performance or better results. In […]
Don’t Try This at Home
Professional vs. Amateur Brain training is experiential. You don’t learn it by reading about it or taking courses or attending lectures. You learn it by doing it. Since there is a bit of a learning curve, as with any new technology, it makes sense that a professional would have a lot more experience and thus […]
Operant Conditioning and Brain Training
Professional bias in Conventional Wisdom Much of the early work in brain training was done by psychologists. Psychologists were the early publishers of the research, and guided much of the later publishing. They understood and described what they were doing in the terms of psychology—especially behaviorism. Quite naturally they developed a sense of ownership of […]
Conventional Wisdom and Literature
It’s In the Literature Literature vs. Precedents In science, peer-reviewed literature published in specific journals is intended to expand understanding of issues in the same way legal precedents expand the meaning of legislated law. Precedents are produced by judges making decisions in specific cases related to a specific legislated law. They are practical and deal […]
Rewiring and other Analogies
What Brain Training Does: Rewiring What Brain Training is NOT As you look through the websites and written material on brain training, you’ll often see it referred to as “rewiring”, “harmonizing” or “balancing” the brain. Those are attractive marketing images, but they aren’t very accurate. Rewiring The brain is “wired” in the sense that trillions […]
Chemical Imbalances in the Brain
Chemical Imbalances The Big Lie The big lie refers to use of a lie so huge that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Its corollary states, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, eventually people will come to believe it.” Countless trusted physicians, following the pharmaceutical industry, made […]