In this rich audio interview we have the pleasure of speaking with Ewa, (E-ah-va) Aho Nyman, a seasoned psychotherapist practicing in Stockholm Sweden. Ewa speaks to us in May, 2025 from her family’s summer property Frosvi, near Vimmerby and Vastervik in Northern Sweden. Ewa has included some pictures from her rural property so we, from our various places in the world, can imagine her world and her work in a closer way.
Perhaps because Ewa started out as a preschool teacher before becoming a dance teacher, then a dance therapist and later a psychotherapist, she shares about her 30 years of practice and her work with neurofeedback and DBR in a generously open way.
Ewa trained in neurofeedback in Sweden with Anna Hallberg, Magdalena Bluhme and Maud Nilsson.
Later she crossed the ocean to Boston Massachusetts for an in-person training with Dr Frank Corrigan.
Ewa’s Summer Kitchen
Some of us may find ourselves and our own experiences reflected in her stories and her questions. Whether you are curious to increase your understanding of neurofeedback and DBR, or are interested in stories that might reflect your own work in these modalities, you will find Ewa’s reflections engaging and substantive as she shines a light on the application and outcomes of these humane brain-based modalities.
I hope you enjoy her presence and her sharing as it enhances your understanding of this work and of our shared human journey.
Sending My Best,
Ellen Shaw-Smith
August 2025, Hadley Massachusetts
Ewa’s Summer Property in Frosvi
Interview
Biography of Interview Participant
I work and live in Stockholm, Sweden and split my time between the big city and the countryside in Småland; where I live among oaks and maples, lakes and wide fields. I have done psychotherapeutic work for over 25 years, all the time as a private practicing psychotherapist with my own clinic.
Both personally and privately, I have always strived to understand the relation between the mind and the body. The division of the two, which can be traced at least all the way back to Descartes, has always annoyed and confused me. Especially provocative has been this apparent need to enforce the separation between mind and body. After all, are they not one and the same? Is there actually any real divide to discuss?
I have always strived towards connection, coherence and completeness. To be able to meet another person in a way that is based on understanding, knowledge and the complete prescence of myself. With the meeting resting on a desire to understand the other person fully, on every level of their existence.
The foundation of my job and as a person has been to bring together the understanding of our body.
The division, which has been since the days of Descartes at least, of body and psyche has always chafed and confused me.
Why have we had to divide ourselves, i.e. our body? It is one, right? Is there really a difference?
I have always strived to the opposite of that, to connection, context and wholeness. To be able to meet the person I meet based on an understanding, knowledge and in my entire presence that is based on a holistic perspective. To understand the whole person on all levels.
The entirety of my education in psychotherapy is based on psychodynamics, and before pursuing this line of work, I had trained to be a teacher. From these differenct schools of thought, my current approach is influenced equally by cognitivism and psychodynamics.
Since I was three years old I have been dancing, and at twenty-five I became a professional dancer. As a dancer I dedicated a lot of my time towards improvisation – to create in the moment and capture what happens right now and to keep developing the motion through the non-verbal language of artistic expression.
To be able to improvise freely and safely requires clear and definitive boundaries, as well as a strong foundation of knowledge upon which the improvisation can take place. During the first 35 years of my life I developed this knowledge as a dancer, and it is clear to me now how this foundation has impacted my life from that point and how it continues to imfluence my work today.
From 2003 to 2010 i conducted a research project where the primary focus was to study and evaluate how my method of working with psychotherapy, based in my body-focused work, impacted patients with trauma and chronic pain. Through that project, my fascination for the way the things that happen to our body finds their way into affecting the mind was deepened.
When I started this work, there was not much knowledge available in the issues that I wanted to understand and study. Through neurofeedback I have been given answers that deepened my understanding, and DBR has helped me to further develop that knowledge. Finally, I feel the pieces of the puzzle starting to come together, shedding light on the greater picture.
As treatment methods, NF and DBR have helped my clinical work reach heights I had not been able to imagine in the past. It is truly amazing to have the ability to finally help my clients stabilise their brains and minds, and to see the effect that this stability has on their ability to process their traumas and experiences.
To be able to help people alleviate their symptoms in this truly wonderful way is utterly remarkable.
If you would like to reach out to Ewa Aha Nyman, please contact her via her website or by email:
