Marna Scarry-Larkin, MA CCC-SLP CBIS, is the Master of Brain Training/retraining, having personally…read moretrained a lot of the other people in the field around SLO and beyond. Her experience in the world of brain science, speech language therapies, and neurofeedback training is legendary and she is quoted as the expert in many bios of other up and coming therapists.
I didn't start out as a believer, not because I didn't like or respect Marna, but because I knew absolutely nothing about what she did or the processes she used to do it. It seemed kind of expensive, but she assured me my health insurance would pay a good portion of it, and I trusted her on that. I put myself in her hands, and trusted the process, and my life is significantly changed for the better because of it.
I came in having heard of the benefits of brain training from parents at my music conservatory, and had watched one after another student with ADD/ADHD undergo it and have significant positive results... both in attention span in music lessons, and socially in working with me. I could tell something big was happening for them as they got off of Ritalin and other drugs, and kept and then even improved their mental acuity.
I had a different issue. I am 62, had undergone brain surgery after a battle with trigeminal neuralgia, and started having severe memory issues. I feared I was suffering from the beginning stages of dementia, and it scared the daylights out of me. From details I had to remember about individual people, to appointments I would make with clients, to personal things I needed to remember, not much seemed to stick in my brain anymore. It was embarrassing and frustrating, and debilitating. It got to a point that I didn't even remember what I didn't remember from day to day.
Marna was one of my parents at the conservatory, and I was talking to her one day about an appointment I had missed and how scared I was that my brain seemed to be going downhill fast. She told me about the neurofeedback training she was doing with her patients with memory issues, and said she believed it would be highly effective for me. At that point I was pretty desperate, and she was the first person who was absolutely confident she could help me.
I went to her office, and she sat me in a very comfy recliner with a pillow and a blanket, put some electrodes on my head, which I could barely feel, and asked me to watch her big screen TV for 40 or so minutes. I wanted to know what to do, and she said "nothing... just relax and watch the TV". Every once and a while she would point out a metric of my brain waves on the screen. "Really? That's it?" I thought. "This can't possibly really work."
After the TV session we would talk about strategies for how to remember specific types of data. Her suggestions were clear and easy to implement. The whole process seemed far too easy to work long term in any real way.
But I just trusted the process and continued coming to sit in the easy chair and watch tv once a week, and talk to Marna for a bit after.
It took a few months and then I started noticing that I wasn't missing appointments very much anymore. I was remembering the contents of my discussions with people again. I was able to clearly plan my day and remember to follow through on things that were important to me. I became more motivated to try new projects again. My passion about my career started to build again, as my lifetime of experience was back in my mind and back at my disposal. It is now about 3 years since I did that approximately 6 months of therapy with Marna, and my memory is better than it has ever been!
Having gotten to know her a little better, I found out that she is a tenacious researcher of new modalities, strategies, and neuroscience that involves memory and the brain. What seemed to be so simple, when I came in, was actually me benefitting from a dedicated professional at the top of her game and at the forefront of what we now know as brain-training. She knew precisely how to help me, and like a laser beam, set it up for me. Didn't waste one minute of my time with ideas that didn't work for me.
Simply put, if you want the absolute best in the business... bar none, get in to see Marna herself. Her protégés are wonderful, I'm sure, but there's nothing like going to the best of the best. My life is forever changed because of her dedication, passion, and expertise. Marna Scarry-Larkin is her name. Get your brain back online!!!
