We’ve talked about brain music before – everything from brain music therapy to binaural brain beat synthesizers to hardcore brain-controlled synth action to bogus stories about dudes controlling synths with mind bullets.
It’s hard to believe, but it looks like there may be a commercial future for brain music medicine.
According to a Fox News report, Dr. Galina Mindlin, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York City has been using brain music therapy for three years to treat a variety of ills, including insomnia, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, depression, substance abuse and stress.
A complete treatment, which includes a brief medical evaluation, a recording of the brain waves and a personalized music file, costs $550.
According to Mindlin, the therapy has an 80-85 percent success rate. That’s where my BS detector goes off.
Drug treatment programs have abysmally low completion rates – one study reports that about 3.5% of those that start a drug treatment program complete it.
Call me skeptical on brain music therapy, even if there’s a market for it.
Let me know what you think!
Drug rehab programs have low completion rates because they don’t address the reasons a person seeks to get high in the first place. Humans are naturally inclined to alter their perceptions, whether by coffee, alcohol, tobacco, cola, sugar, cannabis, darvocet, whatever. This isn’t always a bad thing, though I get that I may be flamed for suggesting that. Oh, well.
Maybe Mindlin’s therapy works at the quoted rates. If it does, great! If not, it was a good try. Remember, people have to WANT to change to make a difference in their own lives. If they don’t want to, well…
ThinReality – good point. Music is my mind-altering drug of choice!
My girlfriend has insomnia issues and went to Dr Jeffery Thompson near San Diego at the Center for Neuroacoustic Research. She was in bad shape before heading down and he created a custom set of cds for her that changed her life. He’s got a wide variety of recordings that you can find for sale many places. Good stuff!
He’s even got a sound/massage table with transducers mounted under a massage table so you can feel the sound. Lay on the table, mix these with his light-activated LED glasses, put on the headphones so you’re getting the binaural beats in your head… It works.
He has especially high success rates with ‘ADD’ children – they do not need drugs!
I’m exploring binaural beats myself, hoping to incorporate them with my music. Starting as an acoustic musician I’m facing a steep learning curve but I’d love to get a small midi keyboard and Gnaural or something like that to produce the beats and mix it all in with my didjeridus and gongs and such.
Any recommendations for an electronic music newbie? Programs or keyboards? Got a Mac, Mbox2 with protools le and a bit of garage band experience.
Another great migraine article! I always like read your blog so I always come back for more.