Marty Wuttke is a pioneer and therapist in the rapidly evolving science of neurofeedback. Nancy Silverstein met up with him when he recently visited the UK to find out about his latest brain system.
NEURO SCIENCE was meant to be the 'new medicine'10 years ago. However, it stayed mainly in the ranks of top executives and athletes looking to improve performance rather than those dealing with growing pathologies.
Martin (Marty) Wuttke is a pioneer of this work. When he visited the UK in 2010, I had an opportunity to meet him, learn about his work, have my brain mapped, and be treated. After that I would continue to work, in the UK, with those who have had his training.
Marty points out that our brain tends to follow certain “scripts”, patterns of thought that take us to the same place over and over. Neurofeedback, as it forges new pathways in the brain, helps us devise new scripts. It is that simple.
Although there is a plethora of techniques and treatments we can use to address many of our ills, I have found Marty's work to be some of the finest.
“It gives us access to the involuntary or autonomic nervous system, It is that portion of the peripheral nervous system we once thought was totally out of our control. Now we know, through this technology, that almost anything that we can measure, in terms of mechanisms that are happening inside of the body, and can feedback to you, can ultimately be controlled.” – Martin Wuttke
Marty was affiliated with Ridgecrest Hospital and Woodridge Psychiatric Hospital from 1984 – 1995, where he designed and directed the first large scale inpatient Neurofeedback program in the USA. Neurofeedback was used at the hospital as an integral part of the treatment program. Over 11 years of application and well over 1500 patients went through Neurofeedback training, and Marty was responsible for QEEG evaluation, analysis and treatment.
He is a pioneer in combining multiple protocols of Neurofeedback therapy as an intervention for traumatic brain injury, depression, nicotine dependence, eating disorders, chronic pain, anxiety, chemical dependency and alcoholism. He continues to develop, research, and teach protocols for Neurofeedback application with ADD/ADHD, learning disabilities and developmental disorders, autoimmune disorders, and stress related disorders. In 2003 new advanced whole body neuro/biofeedback technology hardware and software was developed under his guidance.
Since then his reputation has grown from strength to strength. It is his aim to establish Neurotherapy as an adjunctive intervention for health systems, educational systems, the criminal rehabilitation system, mental health systems as well as for those persons on a personal path of inner exploration.
One example of the strength of this work is in Susan's story. Susan had a neuro muscular disorder that was untreatable and upon diagnosis was told to go home and get her affairs in order. Not only is she still very much alive, she is a Neurotherapy practitioner. Best of all she and Marty are now married. Here are a couple of photos of Susan, the first before treatment and the second after.
To read more about this remarkable story visit: http://www.wuttkeinstitute.com/about/
The possibilities in health when addressing the brain are encouraging to the point of profound. For more information and recent studies in the area of Neuro Science recommended is the book The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr. Norman Doidge MD published by Penguin.
