On my website, I talk about neurofeedback as a tool for personal change and growth and emphasize that I am not doing "treatment" when I work with someone using neurofeedback. Why do I emphasize this? Why is it so important?

Well, in the past few years, there has been a movement in psychology called Positive Psychology that aims to move professional psychology away from its current preoccupation on treating disease and distress. There was even a special volume of the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association published in January 2000 to celebrate the recent work on exploring and promoting "Happiness, Excellence, and Optimal Human Functioning" (APA). Yet in spite of all the turn of the millenium hoopla, there is still a strong focus on treating psychopathology and dysfunction.

In my own practice, I know people sometimes have conditions they hope to change in their lives -- physical, emotional, or cognitive "less than perfect" ways they function.

Yet, in my experience, they don't just want to get rid of the "bad" -- they are hoping that changing a limiting condition can free them to become all they can be. And that's where positive psychology comes in....

After World War II, psychology came out of the experimental lab and into the hospitals and businesses of the world. It became a flourishing clinical practice, which. like its brother science of medicine, concentrated on pathology and repairing damage within a disease model of human functioning.

Yet there were other voices, as well.

Humanistic psychology in the 1960's, under the leadership of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and others tried to balance this emphasis on pathology by introducing a new respect for self-actualization and personal growth.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of research and the general laissez-faire attitudes of the 60's, the humanistic approach to the field of psychology disappeared largely into all the self-help and "inner child" books we find on the bookshelves under "Psychology" in any large bookstore. What does that say? It tells me that humanistic psychology struck a nerve with consumers even if psychologists didn't see fit to pursue it. Something was clearly missing from the traditional psychology approach.

Positive Psychology, a term coined by Martin Seligman, insists that psychology is not just the study of pathology, weakness, and damage. It is also about exploring strength and virtue. Psychology is not just about treatment -- fixing what is broken -- it is also about nurturing what is best in each person. It is larger than a "branch" of medicine concerned with illness vs health; it is a branch of study about humans and their larger aspirations and visions.

In practicing rehabilitation for so many years, I found myself gradually evolving from a "medical model" focus on fixing impairments and minimizing disabilities to helping people re-define and explore their visions for their lives, then learn to live these visions.

Neurofeedback has given me a tool to expand this positive psychology perspective outside of rehabilitation to all of us. While it can help to change things that interfere with where a person wants to go, it minimizes any preoccupation with just "treating [X]" to a focus on building positive strengths and qualities.

And that's why I emphasize that I don't "do treatment" with neurofeedback. I am not diagnosing what is "wrong" with a person and developing a specific treatment plan to "fix" this specific "condition". I am trying to engage the person in re-visioning their life, observing themselves differently day to day, and moving in a direction where they want to go. To me, neurofeedback is not about treatment; it's about expanding freedom and choice.

What about you? What do you want from a professional health service provider?

To explore more about Positive Psychology:

The Positive Psychology Center, started by Dr. Martin Seligman, "father" of Positive Psychology

"Positivity Central", host of the annual "Optimal Functioning" conference

Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman

Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi