Interview with Thomas Feiner Director and Founder of the Institute for EEG Neuroscience, Researcher, Speaker, Neuro-Coach

Hello Thomas and thank a lot for agreeing to do this interview. I know how busy you are. Could I start by asking how you became involved with Neuro- science?

My primary drive to become a Trainer and Psychotherapist was because I wanted to help people reduce suffering and improve quality of life. I know this from my own experience. Thirty years ago, I suffered from a panic disorder for almost three years. It was so hard that I didn´t even want to meet people any longer. It was a terrible time, but I always knew that something would cure and help. I discovered meditation, special breathing techniques, and biofeedback, which gave me back my life.

Thomas, May I ask what training you have done?

I studied psychology, psychotherapy, systemical therapy, family therapy, became an occupational therapist, traveled many to times to United States to learn from the best in the field of Neurotherapy.

When did you open your EEG-Neurofeedback Institute?

I founded the Institute for EEG-Neurofeedback back in 2008, which offers education in Neurofeedback and Brain mapping worldwide. I was lucky to find many brilliant minds who supported my ambitions to make Neurofeedback and Brain Mapping more established in the clinical field.

I learned everything I could learn about brain function and medicine and how mind and body come together as a whole – everything is connected.. Then I discovered EEG brain mapping. The so-called Quantitative EEG (QEEG). This technology allows us to differentiate between a balanced, healthy brain and dysregulated brain function. What a significant step forward in medicine – even today, most traditional medicine doesn’t look at the brain when it comes to treating disorders like depression, anxiety, ADD, PTSD, and many other diseases. Looking at the brain made the work so much more efficient and all of a sudden, people were able to understand and the clinician no longer had to guess what to do.

I understand that you now have a research lab, could you tell me a bit more about your work?

I wanted to dive deeper into Neuroscience. I wanted to understand why things work and how this can all be even more efficient. In 2012, I started to become even more interested in meditation and the different brain states that are associated with meditation after I discovered the research from Richard Davidson, who is still one of my favourite brain scientists. He made me so curious about exploring what they call “higher levels of consciousness.”

I was so excited about this subject that I founded my research lab and I found some great people to collaborate with. I started working with biomarkers and created the neuroscientific software CAPITO which stands for Cognitive And Psychophysiological Test Operations as I couldn´t find anything on the market which met my requirements. I gathered a brilliant team around me, and now we even work with several universities worldwide that use my software. It has now become a project which allows people to compare cognitive and emotional decision-making processes and cognitive brain performance in general. One step further in exploring the mysteries of the human mind. But one of the most exciting moments was when in early 2017, I was asked by Dr Joe Dispenza to help him in his brain research by measuring the brain changes from before during and after his meditation retreats.
Three years later and hundreds of Brain-Scans, my team and I have discovered a lot of mind-blowing results in many of the brains of these meditators. A more prominent study in collaboration with the University of California is in progress.

Thomas, so many of us have lost friends and family to Alzheimers. I have a particular interest myself. Is this something you too are interested in?

Yes very much so. What is excellent against brain ageing is using Photobiomodulation.

This sounds like something for a talk or another interview when I have done my own research too. I would like to thank you Thomas for taking the time to do this interview.