Step inside the Center for Brain Healing and you may feel like you've just stepped inside a science fiction novel.

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Phil Jones, a nuerofeedback therapist, placed a cap containing more than a dozen electrodes onto Margie Schlessinger's head, then went back to his computer screen to monitor her brain's activity.

Jones asked Schlessinger to close her eyes for several minutes, then open them for several minutes, then focus on certain objects. The whole time the computer is tracking what's going on inside her head as she's going through these motions.

He's not reading her mind, but he's getting a map of how her brain is functioning.

"We're recognizing stress; we're measuring it; we're saying; This is when you're stressed. This is when you're not stressed. Let's teach you how to be unstressed, to change your brain state, if you will,' " said Jones, who has been practicing muerofeedback therapy for around 10 years. In the last year, he has partnered with Counseling Services of Central Florida Inc. to create the Center for Brain Healing.

Schlessinger is actually a therapist who decided to try the procedure for herself after hearing success stories.

Debra Botwin is one of those success stories.

As an attorney and mother of two, Botwin said stress ruled her life. After going through several neurofeedback sessions, she said her mind became quieter.

"The distractions are still there, but I don't get taken off my focus. I stay on task and I complete what I have to complete and then I deal with the next thing," said Botwin.

Jones said clients are able to achieve similar results in as few as five or as many as 40 sessions.

After the initial assessment, clients come back two to three times a week for training designed to fit their ailments until they feel a difference. Jones said nuerofeedback has been used to treat attention deficit disorder, anxiety, depression, addictions and even help people lose weight.

Botwin said her training sessions involved focusing on an object on a computer screen. If she kept her concentration and focus there was music that played. If she broke her concentration the music stopped.

"I would notice there was no music, and that was my first clue that I'm not concentrating on something that I had been asked to concentrate on," she said.

Jones said that music acts as a reward and conditions the brain away from unfavorable behaviors.

"Your brain takes care of most of it for you, so when you hear that tone, it's just a tangible situation that occurs so you know things are changing towards those goals," he said.

Jones and other nuerofeedback practitioners said that more insurance companies are covering the procedure under mental health codes. He said the cost without insurance is typically between $2,000 to $5,000.

Dr. Timothy Royer is the founder of Neurocore, a national organization that set up a nuerofeedback center inside the RDV Sportsplex on Maitland Summit Boulevard in Orlando.

He said that only about half of the insurance providers out there cover it and that HMOs do not cover it. Neurocore charges $60 an hour for uninsured clients.