As I understand it (admittedly, I have a pretty rudimentary understanding of the stuff), brain wave technologies works along these same principles. When my therapist was going to get trained using the technology, he said that the therapy strives to get patients brain waves "to mimic those of buddhist monks". Don't know the science behind this though, outside of the stuff shown in the videos that you've already seen.

I have done auditory therapy in the past (designed to balance Alpha/Beta/WhateverTheThirdOneIs brain waves, and get the two hemispheres of the brain communicating better with eachother) but have experienced little success within this specific modality. In terms of your friend's philosophies... well, I've seen a lot of healers over the past 5 years, and the main thing I've learned is that every great healer (and I mean this in the most literal sense possible, defining a "healer" as someone who brings healing to his patients, regardless of the means) has their own theory on how the body heals, and none of them are wrong. What's important (not to mention mystifying, difficult, frustrating, and often depressing) is finding out what's right for you.

I know no other method to finding what's "right" than trail and error, though I've also learned to listen to my gut when considering a new therapy (or when considering stopping a therapy that doesn't seem to be reaping any more benefits). My most profound leaps in healing have occurred when I've shut my analytical brain down and followed my intuition.

I talked to my therapist guy a few months ago about doing the Brain State Tech stuff, and he told me it would cost about $1,000 (give or take $200, though I don't know if he was cutting me a deal since I've seen him for so long beforehand) to do the therapy. The assessment, if I remember correctly, was something like $150, though I like the assessment aspect of this particular therapy. At least with this you're objectively tested and can be told either "this therapy could reap GREAT benefits for you" or "this stuff's not a good fit for you, you should try something else", in which case you're only out a couple hundred instead of a full thousand. That's a bit more comfortable for me than the usual "well... let's see what we can do" leap of faith that comes with traditional therapy.

The guy I know that does this told me that patients usually do ALL of their sessions in a week to a week and a half, as they're more effective the closer they are to one another (since a damaged brain will gravitate towards its established degenerative cycles, you have to keep persistently reminding it of how it's supposed to act before it actually starts doing so on its own).

Why would you need to buy any equipment or software?

I've done hypnotherapy for a while now with varying levels of success. A short while back, I saw this same hypnotist every week for a month or so, and we pretty much tried every therapy in the book. It was interesting... after my sessions I could often feel the plates in my head moving around, and the chronic pain in my body would move this way and that, so the therapy was definitely doing something, that can't be denied.

At that time I was mixing the hypnotherapy with some cranio-sacral therapy, and this therapy cocktail produced a couple of big bangs (leaps) in improvement, but ultimately didn't "slay the beast". I still had my chronic pain, still had depression, still had vision problems, still had all of my other random PCS and PTSD baggage, they were all just lessened significantly. So the work did a lot of good, it just didn't do the whole shebang-a-bang.

We're trying one last therapy before we move our separate ways entirely, called "Cellular Release Therapy", which essentially involves getting the patient into a very relaxed state, then providing the body with commands to clear out all of its memories of pain and trauma on a cellular level. Sounds too simplistic to work, but occasionally people draw absolutely PROFOUND benefits from the work, so I'm taking an "eh, why not?" approach to it. I've been really thirsty since our appointment, and I've had some noticable headaches (not PCS type headaches, like the type of headaches I used to get as a kid at baskeball practice... "normal" headaches). I take both of these as good signs, but we'll see what happens.

If you're thinking of trying it, I'd ease into hypnotherapy carefully. The stuff really dives right into your subconscious mind, so you have to be careful in case there's something really explosive in there. The first time I tried hypnotherapy (well over a year ago now) I had a near nervous breakdown afterwards, so it can be a bit of a dicey proposition. Make sure you're good and stable before you go exploring your instability, you know?