An Introduction to the Alpha-Stim^®
Stress Control System

Welcome to my question-and-answer forum about Alpha-Stim, a Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulator designed to help with depression, anxiety and insomnia. Please take a few minutes and get acquainted with this friendly little electrical device, the Alpha-Stim Stress Control System (SCS). It is going to be around for a long time, so you will want to learn about it pretty soon. The main reason that I have included this on my website is that I use it in therapy practically all of the time. People come in, put on their SCS unit, and we begin.

As a psychologist I have been steadily using it to help my patients for more than three years. I can declare with certainty that it makes a positive contribution in therapy, and it helps people outside of therapy as well. I first learned about Alpha-Stim by speaking with someone who was experiencing its positive effects, so I telephoned the staff at the Electromedical Products headquarters in Texas to learn more. It was helping somebody right in front of me, and I believed that what I was observing was pretty powerful. That turned out to be correct. The Electromedical Products staff kindly answered my questions, and I put an SCS unit to work. It immediately showed positive results, so I went ahead and purchased 10 units! They were sold out in two weeks, and I have been distributing them to people near and far ever since.

Of course, I would not hand out a device that stimulates the brain without trying it out myself, so I did just that. The Alpha-Stim brochure advises beginners to use it every day for three weeks, so I did – one hour each day in the morning. Even though I missed my Alpha-Stim time on Sundays, I surely got the desired effect before the end of the three weeks. That was a long time ago, and I can say that I’ve noticed since then that I cry less, yell less, and feel more energetic and clear-headed than ever. Perhaps once a month or so, I notice that I’m all stressed out, and when I use it again for an hour or more, for a day or two, it puts me back on track. I always have an Alpha-Stim unit on hand when I carry out therapy, and invite the person to put it on while we are speaking. Whether people use the Alpha-Stim unit only while they are in my office, or if they purchase one and use it at home as well as during the therapy session, I see that it helps people to deal more effectively with strong feelings. It can help in other ways too. For example, whenever I fly, I use the SCS before landing, to help me with jet lag. It is a great benefit to arrive at the airport clearheaded. Interestingly, one person calls it her “happy-zapper.” The SCS immediately helped her with headaches and insomnia. This is not really a testimonial, just an open statement about my own experience.

Please do not just write off this electrical device as a hoax, or expect that I am merely hyping it. If you want to know more, just read the article below that I have been handing out to my patients. It answers most of the questions that come up. I have sent this article to the neuroscientist who designed the Alpha-Stim technology, Dr. Daniel L. Kirsch. He said it is accurate, and it shows that I understand how it works very well. So thank you, Dr. Kirsch, for your support.

Should you consider purchasing one, you will be pleased to know that Alpha-Stim is FDA approved and that no significant side effects have been reported in over two decades of use. The price is $595, and that includes a five-year warranty.

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Processing Feelings Using the Alpha-Stim^®
Stress Control System

James G. Friesen, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist

The Alpha-Stim Stress Control System (Electromedical Products International, Inc., Mineral Wells, Texas, www.alpha-stim.com) is a cranial electrotherapy stimulator (CES) device approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat anxiety, depression and insomnia by, or under the supervision of a licensed health care professional. It is the subject of over 50 scientific publications, which is more than most drugs. It has been used to assist people withdrawing from drugs (see references 1-3), to help children and adults with attention deficit disorder (4-5), and to improve the ability to obtain restorative sleep, feelings of well-being, and “quality of life” ratings of people suffering from the severe pain of fibromyalgia (6-7). A comparison of CES with antidepressant drugs shows it to be far more cost-effective than the average selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), yet devoid of any significant side effects (8).

While the experimental data clearly prove the efficacy of this technology, as a psychologist I have found the literature to be lacking a discussion about using CES in a clinical setting, to process feelings, which is a crucial component of successful psychotherapy. Accordingly, I have prepared this paper for my own patients and others who would like to understand how an Alpha-Stim device might help them process feelings, a subject not covered by any CES publication to date. Here is a copy of what I give to my patients, when they take an Alpha-Stim SCS device to use at home, to help them get the maximum results out of their new unit.

Getting Started on the Alpha-Stim Stress Control System

Now that you have your Stress Control Device, here are some guiding ideas. Please review this information thoroughly, so that you can receive the most benefit. The questions and answers come from hundreds of hours of clinical observations of how people respond to this particular device, and from consultations with Dr. Daniel L. Kirsch of Mineral Wells, Texas, the neuroscientist who designed the technology.

What Does Alpha-Stim Do?

It provides a slight energy boost to your central nervous system (CNS), and that helps it do its many jobs a little better. One of its jobs is processing pain. Another is processing feelings. Your CNS is constantly at work doing those jobs, so every time you use the Alpha-Stim SCS it helps you process pain, and it helps you process your feelings at an unconscious level.

In this case “unconscious” refers to non-verbal processing of feelings. You will probably not be able to talk about what is happening with your feelings as they begin to emerge during an Alpha-Stim treatment. However, putting your words to the emerging feelings is sometimes possible within a few minutes, and that helps process the emerging feelings quite a bit. Unconscious processing of your feelings turns out to be the good and the bad news all at the same time. Alpha-Stim treatments help you cope, particularly with daily feelings, which is the good news. It also gets behind your defenses to where the deep feelings are kept, which can be bad news if you do not process those feelings in some way, like talking about them.

Alpha-Stim treatments process daily feelings and make initial contact with deep feelings. Do not be surprised if you uncover deep feelings using the SCS. Unprocessed, deep feelings that are very intense can sometimes be too extensive to process right away. If headaches or bodily symptoms come up during the treatments, they very likely are attached to the emerging deep feelings. Do not stop the Alpha-Stim treatments if you get a headache or some other bodily reaction. Here is the lesson I have learned: Trust that you will be successful in processing feelings, even though it may not initially be very easy and may not happen right away. However, if you stay with the plan you will find that you can process even a large amount of feelings. This is a tool to help you process feelings, which will need to be dealt with sooner or later. It is preferable to talk about the emerging feelings and to keep your Alpha-Stim treatment going until you break through and get the “Alpha-Stim effect.”

When I describe how the SCS “processes pain”, that refers to syndromes like fibromyalgia, to persistent muscle tension, and to other kinds of chronic, pain-related conditions. As a psychologist I am not trained in medicine, so it is not within my domain to speak of medical matters. Nonetheless, it seems germane to report what I have observed. I have seen it help people with bodily pain, pretty dramatically, so I can say without hesitation that it is one approach to pain management. Please note that there are two other Alpha-Stim devices, the Alpha-Stim 100 and the Alpha-Stim Personal Pain Manager, that are specifically designed for pain management. They have electrodes that target specific pain sites. The Alpha-Stim website can explain the differences further.

The Aug. 22, 2005 edition of The Los Angeles Times featured an article on recent thinking about fibromyalgia. On the front page of the “Health” section, this article strongly suggested that the emerging, appropriate approach to treating fibromyalgia is to recognize that is it a “pain-processing disorder – arising in the brain and spinal cord [the CNS] – that disrupts the ways the body perceives and communicates pain.” I believe that the Alpha-Stim SCS helps with fibromyalgia because it enables the CNS to process pain more effectively. For further questions about treating fibromyalgia and chronic pain conditions, call the Alpha-Stim people at (800) 367-7246 or log on to www.alpha-stim.com.

What Do You Mean by an “Alpha-Stim Treatment?”

Every time that you use Alpha-Stim, that can be considered a treatment. Usually, within 20 minutes, you can expect to get the SCS “effect.” An hour or longer will give you a better chance, but it may take still longer for some people or for when certain feelings are blocked. When people use it for less than 20 minutes they can sometimes feel a little bit worse. It is better to stay hooked up to this energy-booster long enough to process the feelings that are emerging during a “treatment.” Here is the effect that you are looking for: Clearer thinking and increased energy. That does not happen every time. In some cases it may take a few weeks of daily treatments. Nonetheless, that is what you are seeking, during the few weeks that it usually takes to gain the maximum effect, which is cumulative. You may have a good effect the very first time that you use it, and it may last for a few minutes or hours. But in order to make the good effect last longer you will need to keep on with daily treatments for a few weeks. You can strengthen the good effect by continuing the treatments for a few minutes after you reach the desired effect. Alpha-Stim treatments do not need to require that you spend time away from your daily routine. You can use it while you do paperwork, computer work, watching TV or reading the newspaper. It seems best if you can create a positive atmosphere, like listening to great music or using it while you are in the middle of an enjoyable activity. You can even stick the device into your pocket and use it while you take a walk or while you are doing chores.

Do We Know What Happens at the Brain Level During
Alpha-Stim Treatments?

Alpha-Stim treatments appear to strengthen your brain’s joy pathways by resolving painful, conflicted feelings. When unresolved feelings are properly dealt with, all paths lead to joy. That is the way that brains are supposed to operate, and the SCS helps brains work as they should. A pilot study demonstrated that just one 20-minute treatment increased Alpha brain waves and decreased Delta and Theta brains waves (9). What does that mean? It is incompatible with anxiety, which takes place in the Delta and Theta levels of brain activity. It makes you less anxious and more alert by training your brain to operate at the lower level.

People often end up in joy at the end of a therapy session, while using the SCS for the whole time, even if deep feelings are uncovered during a long session. One person said that afterwards she felt “as though she had just had a massage.” That was a very good outcome. She dealt with some deep feelings, and her whole body felt better. It seems to get people to, and eventually gets them through painful feelings, and that leads to joy. This does not automatically happen right away, particularly if a trauma with a lot of bodily pain emerges. What I am emphasizing here is very basic: Alpha-Stim treatments steadily process feelings, so continuing to process the stuck ones eventually allows a brain to return to joy. Whenever negative feelings “take over”, you will not be able to feel joy. But when those feelings subside, your brain automatically returns to joy. That is why it is worth the effort to keep fine-tuning your individualized approach until you get the right effect, as often as is necessary. This is why it is worth the effort to push through difficult feelings during therapy – after resolution is reached people return to joy right away and leave in a much-improved feeling state.

Working on a difficult set of feelings is like climbing a mountain that is partially hidden by clouds. Alpha-Stim can lead you to the mountain and help as you begin to climb. While you are still ascending, you may find that the mountain is much bigger than expected. Do not quickly give up. Alpha-Stim is like equipment that helps you climb any mountain, even one more difficult than you imagined. Mountain climbing and processing feelings always bring unforeseen challenges, so keep the right equipment nearby. If the mountain brings you into unexpected, dangerous territory, it may be a good idea to enlist some help with the unexpected terrain. Teamwork is important for mountains and for feelings. Try to keep in mind that you will soon be heading down the other side, and that will make it worth the effort.

What Signs Suggest that Alpha-Stim is Needed?

When your feelings do not get resolved using your tried-and-true methods, Alpha-Stim may be the right tool. Difficulties maintaining focus on deep feelings during therapy, or leaving therapy in an unsettled state may point to unresolved feelings. Any fear that remains unrelieved over time also points to unresolved feelings. Those indicators are a few common signs that indicate Alpha-Stim could help.

“Ups and downs” in daily feelings can come from too much stress. Because Alpha-Stim helps with those kinds of feelings, Alpha-Stim treatments can be beneficial for people who have a high stress life. Here is something to keep in mind: You do not have to be in therapy in order to benefit from Alpha-Stim. Some spouses and friends of my patients have given me unsolicited, positive reports after they have profited from using Alpha-Stim on their own, apart from therapy.

What About Using Alpha-Stim during Therapy Sessions?

If it improves the therapy process, use it. I’m seeing better processing of feelings using Alpha-Stim during therapy sessions. It is a seemingly subtle, yet powerful tool. Good “feeling work” often results if people get 20 minutes or more Alpha-Stim time just before a therapy session begins. When deep feelings are worked on, it is often a good idea to use the Alpha-Stim beforehand, during therapy, and for another hour afterward. That can produce a better sense of resolution. For phone therapy sessions, it seems good to use the Alpha-Stim before, during, and afterwards as well. For many purposes, Alpha-Stim is not needed very much beyond the three-week initial treatment. However, I have found that whenever people remain in treatment it helps to keep on using Alpha-Stim because new feelings keep coming up. It seems to be a key factor for as long as treatment continues.

Is there a Specific Alpha-Stim Treatment Protocol for Me?

Not exactly, but here are some ideas that will help you to fine-tune your treatments. When strong feelings come up it may be necessary to work on them by using extended treatments, so do not give up and discontinue your plan if the upsetting feelings do not feel better right away. Please try out a few variations in your treatment protocol, so that you will be able to find what suits you best. Try different lengths of treatments, different numbers of treatments per day, different power levels, and attempt to find out what times of the day work best for you, so that you can develop a good daily rhythm. Count on this: You will get in touch with your feelings during each and every treatment, which always gives you an open door for some progress. You should probably avoid using Alpha-Stim treatments before bedtime, since they may give you too much energy to fall asleep. This being said, some people find that SCS treatments help them to fall asleep, at least during times of high stress. Others say that it helps them when they put the SCS unit on the very minute that they awaken, and then they go back to sleep for another hour, which gives them a good start on their day.

Is it Better to Use Alpha-Stim Whenever a Specific Problem Comes up or to Stay on a General Plan?

Try to develop some consistency in your body’s daily rhythm. A general plan to use Alpha-Stim will probably help you quite a bit with that. In addition, eat at the same times during each day, exercise at the same times, take your meds at the same times each day, and use Alpha-Stim treatments at the same times. Each of these can improve your daily rhythm, which helps a lot with insomnia. You can add extra treatments in cases where you need to calm down. Most of the time Alpha-Stim treatments hold anxiety in place, which helps with your daily rhythm. Two hours or more daily seem to help with high stress. Do not change your meds, and be assured that Alpha-Stim treatments will not interfere with your meds.

What About Addictions or the Need to Use Extreme Coping Methods?

People can easily get to a stuck place. “I really need a cigarette” (or ice cream or some other addiction) is a part of many people’s daily struggle. Most people can receive help away by using Alpha-Stim from 20 minutes to an hour, or longer, whenever they get stuck in anxiety, depression, a craving or with some other troubling experience. Alpha-Stim treatments can replace desperate, less desirable, coping measures, like eating problems, taking extra meds, or self-harm.

I have found that Alpha-Stim sometimes seems ineffective in overcoming addictions because it is not immediate enough. An addict is looking for a “right now” solution, but Alpha-Stim seems to be ineffective for the first 20 minutes or more. It is best to not quit using the Alpha-Stim too soon. My advice is to keep the Alpha-Stim attached until you get “the effect,” even if it takes much longer than 20 minutes. It takes that kind of discipline to win “feeling battles.” You want to put Alpha-Stim up front in your addictions battle, as a first line intervention. Use it instead of sticking with the addictive behavior, and you will be on the right pathway.

Do You Have Any Tips for Me?

I have found that when folks begin Alpha-Stim treatments they often keep the same mindset that they use when they take meds. “I’ll take just a little as possible, and then stop taking it as soon as I can.” While that is often a proper approach for meds, a completely different mindset is needed to get the best results from Alpha-Stim. Since no damage comes from too much Alpha-Stim treatment or from treatment that lasts too many months, a suitable mindset would be something like this. “I’ll see how much Alpha-Stim time is right for me, rather than how little.” It is better to take a “full dose” of Alpha-Stim rather than trying to take as little as possible. Experiment with different “doses” to find out how much it takes to give you the optimal affect. As long as it is helping you there is no reason to stop.

Use Alpha-Stim in a flexible way, but use it regularly. Combine it with calming music or with spiritual time for the best effect. Use it regularly for about three weeks, to see if it helps you gain strength and keep your emotional balance. Start your day with 20 minutes or even 60 minutes. Adding another treatment in the afternoon can be helpful. You can also use treatments during spells of strong fears, anxiety or depression, in addition to your regular plan, as needed. After you have gotten the effect that you are looking for, you can thin the treatments out to every other day, you can use it for fewer minutes or you can lower the strength of the current indicator. Here is a rule of thumb: Keep using it until it helps you and for as long as it helps you.

Here is how you can approach recurring problems – target particular behaviors that interrupt your day, like these:

• If you get anxious just before your spouse comes home, it may help to boost your calmness with Alpha-Stim. In fact, anything that makes you anxious, like an activity, a person or even a time of the day, can be targeted. Here is the bottom line for anxiety – it is intolerable for even a few minutes. People have a strong need to do something, right away, to deal with anxiety. The can get impulsive, doing what they later regret, but they must do something. Please consider using Alpha-Stim. You will not regret it later. If you can hang in there and use it for about 20 minutes, you may find relief.
• Hopelessness is another tough condition to deal with. Hopelessness is its own worst enemy. To experience hopelessness is to deeply believe that nothing could help, so there is no reason to try anything, even Alpha-Stim. Here are two helpful ideas: Stay on your daily Alpha-Stim treatment plan, and talk to someone. Left alone, with no plan for help, hopeless can spiral dangerously.
• If you cannot rid yourself of a craving, like sugar, nicotine or alcohol, try using Alpha-Stim treatments as soon as the cravings begin. We may soon find that, taken together with other treatment approaches, Alpha-Stim may facilitate weight loss and drug addiction recovery, and may even help with alcoholism. The key seems to be replacing the unwanted craving with an Alpha-Stim treatment, to supply the hoped-for CNS energy boost being sought through the addictive behaviors.

Here is another tip. When deep feelings are worked on in therapy, nurture and support is needed. Do not neglect to pursue lots of positives and please create some extra time for fun and frolic while the deep work is underway. Neglecting this, you may find yourself being “short” with the people you love, and find that your coping skills are not as effective as usual. That may happen when Alpha-Stim treatments get behind your conscious defenses, so it will help you to add some extra support while the feeling processing is still underway.

A Few Thoughts about the Future

Despite the purely clinical nature of my observations, it would seem feasible to carry out scientific studies about the effectiveness of Alpha-Stim in therapy. It will take some funding, no doubt, but my observations suggest that such studies should be carried out. I hope that this section will provide some ideas for designing experiments and studies, and will be a challenge for therapists to find out in their clinical practice, to what extent Alpha-Stim can be beneficial for their patients.

If other therapists get the same results as mine, it will not be very long before Alpha-Stim becomes as widely used as meds are today. That will be quite a change, and it will have some far-reaching consequences. For one, the role of meds would have to be fully re-examined. Here is the question begging to be answered: Which conditions or symptoms are helped by boosting the CNS with Alpha-Stim, and which do better when meds are added? As we uncover the answer to that question we will discover the correct course of treatment for many of our patients, particularly those who are not able to process deep feelings. We need to give our best effort to provide solid answers.

Another far-reaching consequence is the necessity of dealing directly with the feelings that come up during sessions whenever Alpha-Stim is used. Those sessions tend to bring unconscious feelings into conscious awareness, and that requires therapists to concentrate on dealing with those feelings as they emerge. We may need to spend some extra therapy time, in those cases, and may need to be more flexible than usual in supplying follow-up phone calls. Do not be surprised if patients using Alpha-Stim during treatment sometimes feel exhausted at the end, and may need to take some extra Alpha-Stim time in the waiting room to calm down before they are ready to drive home.

Treating eating disorders and drug addictions are multi-million dollar industries. After all, the quality of people’s life is at stake when they have problems in the areas of eating or addictions, so they are very eager to make progress. If Alpha-Stim can cut recovery time and cost, we need to make it available not only to people in recovery, but to the people who are running the recovery programs.

Other possible contributions from Alpha-Stim researchers would include creating guidelines for home-based treatment of anxiety, depression, and insomnia. This technology may reduce treatment time, and make it feasible for therapists to help more people by including Alpha-Stim treatments at home, as a key part of their recovery program.

Many people will benefit if professionals from disciplines like psychology, psychiatry, neurology, pain management, nutrition and biofeedback can combine their Alpha-Stim findings, and discover how to use this technology more effectively. I cannot exactly see the future, but it seems to me that if millions of people can benefit from Alpha-Stim, they will soon discover that it can help them, and they will decide to start using Alpha-Stim. We therapists may need to learn how this technology works fairly soon, or we will not be able to answer patients’ questions. It remains for scientists and therapists to determine how to help people use Alpha-Stim in therapy and apart from therapy.

Closing Notes

I was a little hesitant initially to release this article. But now, after three years of watching it work, I can say that the results have been almost too good to be true. I had thought at first that what I am seeing is no more than a placebo effect, or it may be that my patients want me to feel good about my “discoveries,” and are telling me what I want to hear. I now believe, more than ever, that the results are reliable. People keep on using Alpha-Stim without me mentioning it. They bring it along to treatment, week after week, they make it a part of their daily routine and they learn that it is a useful part of their lives. Some even let me know that they found out how much it helps because they left it home during vacation. They reported that it was really missed, and they felt relieved to get it back into their routines. “Seemingly subtle but powerful” sums it up.

I believe it is unethical for therapists not to try using Alpha-Stim. Here is the point: If therapists know that something may help their patients and yet they refuse to try it, that is unethical. These are not simply “initial findings” – we have over 50 scientific studies that support these clinical observations. After continuing treatment with about 100 people in therapy for over three years, I believe that my initial findings are supported by what my patients continue to report. Therapists are mandated to continue to learn about interventions that can help their patients, so if Alpha-Stim may help, therapists cannot afford to ignore that.

References:

1. Brovar, Alan. Cocaine detoxification with cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES): a preliminary appraisal. International Electromedicine Institute Newsletter, 1(4), July/August 1984. Also in Brain/Mind Bulletin, (9)14, August, 1984.
2. Overcash, Stephen J. and Siebenthall, Alan. The effects of cranial electrotherapy stimulation and multisensory cognitive therapy on the personality and anxiety levels of substance abuse patients. American Journal of Electromedicine, 6(2):105-111, 1989.
3. May, Brad, & May, Carole. Pilot project using the Alpha-Stim 100 for drug and alcohol abuse. August, 1993.
4. Overcash, Stephen. The effect of ROSHI protocol and cranial electrotherapy stimulation on a 9-year-old anxious, dyslexic male with attention deficit disorder: A case study. Journal of Neurotherapy, 9(2):63-67, 2005.
5. Smith, Ray B. Cranial electrotherapy stimulation in the treatment of stress related cognitive dysfunction, with an eighteen month follow up. Journal of Cognitive Rehabilitation, 17(6), 14-18, 1999.
6. Cork, Randall C.; Wood, Patrick; Ming, Norbert; Clifton, Shepherd; James, Eddy; and Price, Larry. The effect of cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) on pain associated with fibromyalgia. The Internet Journal of Anesthesiology, 8(2), 2004.
7. Lichtbroun, Alan S., Raicer, Mei-Ming C., and Smith, Ray B. The treatment of fibromyalgia with cranial electrotherapy stimulation. Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, 7(2):72-78, 2001.
8. Gilula, Marshall F., and Kirsch, Daniel L. Cranial electrotherapy stimulation review: a safer alternative to psychopharmaceuticals in the treatment of depression. Journal of Neurotherapy, 9(2):7-26, 2005.
9. Kennerly, Richard. QEEG analysis of cranial electrotherapy: a pilot study. Journal of Neurotherapy (4)2, 2004.