Listen! Focus! But first…relax. Duffy McMahon discovered the healing potential of neurofeedback firsthand. After devastating injuries halted her work as a stone artist, she turned to listening and relaxation therapies to ease her pain. What she learned led her on a new life path.
Drawing from her graduate degree in psychology and a passion for helping children and adults, Duffy opened Innovative Therapies in Phoenix in 2002. Many clients—including her husband, TV/radio personality Pat McMahon—know that brain-training techniques reveal new possibilities for managing anger, alleviating stress, sharpening focus and easing anxiety. Duffy is the mother of four adult children and two grandchildren.
Vicki: How can sitting in a cushy chair in a dark room, watching brain waves on a computer screen, help with anxiety, ADD/ADHD or anger issues?
Duffy: They’re able to see exactly what their brainwaves are doing. They’re able to feel this on a visceral level. Then, when I talk to them about breathing, and how to try to relax, they can feel it—and learn how to calm down.
Vicki: So, as they relax, they can glimpse the screen for feedback and attempt to control their own brainwaves?
Duffy: We’re really helping the brain balance. When the brain is in balance, then you feel better, you can do more, you communicate better. One of the things I teach is deep relaxation, helping people meditate. I help them create visualizations so they can get rid of fears and anger.
Vicki: Give me an example of a visualization.
Duffy: I might say, “I want you to close your eyes and visualize going to the beach, collecting shells,” etc. I have to find out what they like. I incorporate that into something to visualize. I give them ways to put themselves in control and start feeling calm.
Vicki: How do you help kids recognize and get rid of anger?
Duffy: I’ll say, “Okay, I want you to think about something that has made you angry and then I want you to put it into any form you want to. And as you see it coming at you, I want you to beat it up, blow it up, burn it up before it reaches you.” It’s kind of a video game but you’re seeing this in your mind, on the screen, while you’re doing this. We do a lot of that with kids and get them to understand that anger is normal. Anger has a huge effect on our bodies. I help them understand what anger is doing to them. They can understand that.
Vicki: What about helping kids with processing difficulties, or attention deficit challenges?
Duffy: For kids with processing problems I start re-training their ears to listen. We do a listening test to find out what sounds, what particular frequencies they’re not listening to. Then, while they listen for those different frequencies, they’ll also do balancing work—jumping up and down on a ball, for example.
Vicki: What inspired you to enter this field?
Duffy: I actually got into it because I had a processing problem myself. And I had a couple of shoulder surgeries, so I had a pain problem at the same time. I used to do stone sculpting so I was used to doing pretty heavy work.
Vicki: So you’re an artist?
Duffy: I was an artist for a long time. But because of an accident, I had to have two surgeries in one month on the same shoulder. The doctor said, “You’re not going to be able to do stone anymore.” It was quite a blow. I was also in a lot of pain because I couldn’t move my arm. All of the muscles in my arm and in my neck and my back were starting to constrict because of non-movement. I started doing the listening therapy to relax my whole body. I was able to do this on my own.
Vicki: Your husband, Pat McMahon is a veteran radio and TV personality, known to many Arizonans as Gerald—the mean, bratty kid on “Wallace and Ladmo,” which ran on KPHO-TV for 36 years. Has he benefited from any of these therapies?
Duffy: Actually he has. Pat was having a problem with his voice. He had gone to doctors and they gave him different things to take to help with it but his voice was still cracking. So he came in and started doing the brainwave training and he still isn’t sure why this happened but all of a sudden his voice became richer. Whenever you relax the body, you relax all of the parts of the body, including the vocal chords.
Vicki: I suppose the pressure of that talk radio climate must take its toll—or perhaps it’s a need to beat back his “inner Gerald?”
Duffy: I think it’s because he’s the Energizer bunny. Anybody in constant motion with his type of personality…you know he wants to see the world, he wants to know everything and he’s a little sponge. He’s my best bud.
