About Us

A Simple Idea

...didn't start with voluntary control. I was not really interested initially in voluntary brain activity. That was a discovery that hit me in the head. I was fascinated by voluntary control of autonomic activity. I saw a man raise his hand temperature as a bimetal thermal strip bent on his palm. I was fascinated with that sort of control. Then I learned that I could control my brain blood flow. I was doing it! I saw this was a biofeedback activity.

Fascinating! Understanding that brain exercise was a therapeutic process took a couple of years. It came to me that exercise of the brain was what was really going on – that was the critical matter. I backed it up with a literature study, that rats showed brain improvement with physical exercise. Direct brain exercise seemed to me to be the key. Exercise is a real thing.

The Biofeedback Institute of Los Angeles grew out of the Toomim Biofeedback Laboratories and the Biocomp Research Institute, founded in 1970.

In 1973, The Biofeedback Institute of Los Angeles (BILA) opened as a non-profit public service. Under the clinical direction of psychologist Marjorie Toomim, Ph.D, and the electrical mastery of Hershel Toomim, Sc.D., BILA has offered clinical psychotherapy and or EEG and HEG biofeedback to several thousand patients for over thirty years.

Group Photo - (l to r)
Sylvia Heusser - Office Manager
Bob Marsh - Research and Design/Customer Service
Stephanie Dupont, Psy.D. - Clinical Psychology, Neurotherapy
Gunnar Heuser, M.D. - Clinical Supervisor
Hershel Toomim, Sc.D. - President

Between 1973 and 2004, several hundred students attended our EEG training courses resulting in BSC Biofeedback Certification, and CEU units.

Dr's. Toomim are established innovators in the field of neurotherapy. Early in their professional history the Toomim's interest in advancing scientific inquiry in psychology and biofeedback led to their hosting monthly meetings of the Forum for Humanistic Psychology. About this time, Hershel, inspired by his wife Marjorie, designed and built a device that measures brain waves, calling it the Alpha Pacer. The popular press, including Life magazine, published articles extolling the benefits of alpha waves. In 1972, the Alpha Pacer was sold to practitioners through the popular journal Psychology Today. The Biocomp Research Institute opened a storefront on Santa Monica Boulevard where the biofeedback instruments, the Alpha Pacer and later a complete line of biofeedback instruments were distributed.

In the early 1970's, the Toomim's joined other scientists concerned with self-regulation at the first annual meeting for the Biofeedback Society of America. Later, as a logical extension of biofeedback Dr. Hershel Toomim developed a skin conductance device.

He designed and built sets of biofeedback instruments including temperature, muscle, skin and brain wave feedback instruments. As computers evolved into universal measuring tools, responsively he built one biofeedback instrument, the BIOCOMP 2001™, which has 23 programmable applications and 4 channels. The BIOCOMP 2001™ and later the more versatile BIOCOMP 2010™ are the first biofeedback units using infrared light, expanding the machines universal compatibility.

Dr. Hershel Toomim holds a fundamental patent, broadly covering the use of radiation from the brain to evaluate and regulate brain properties, as well as various other electronic device patents. His practical bent lead to the development of the first calibrated biofeedback instruments. His instruments were the first biofeedback machines ever used in dynamic psychotherapy, hence the inception of neurotherapy. This revolutionary application was published in "Psychotherapy; Theory and Practice" (1974) and republished two years ago in the Newsletter of the California Biofeedback Society "Biofeedback" (2004). His interest in neuroscience lead to the discovery of voluntary control of blood flow in the brain, hemoencepholography (HEG), ("Journal of Neurotherapy", v. 8 no. 3). Dr. Hershel Toomim's involvement with psychotherapy has become a primary consideration in his work.

Since the inception of the Biofeedback Institute of Los Angeles the treasure is innovative process; the ability to ask fundamental questions. We ask what are the limits? How does it work? How fast is it? We seek objective tests showing where in the brain fundamentals lay. BILA's history and accomplishments are reflected by many plaques on the walls, recognizing unique achievements. The development of the first brain wave machines used in psychotherapy, the discovery of HEG – voluntary control of blood flow in the brain and recent expansion of HEG applications in psychotherapy are fundamental ideas, reflecting Marjorie and Hershel Toomims' innovative spirit. "It is not good enough that it works, but to recognize basic functions of what we do and how they affect the brain is our goal."

Successful HEG neurotherapy is based on unique concepts that reliably aid successful treatment. These ideas led to a new concept that supports our edifice. These fundamental ideas support the innovations by which Biocomp Research Institute and the Biofeedback Institute of Los Angeles are known.

Included are:

1. The concept that the pre-frontal cortex is in charge in of the brain.
2. The concept that we can evaluate where the treatment is to be done.
3. The use of electrical instruments to evaluate deficiencies in the brain.
4. The recognition that we are evaluating efficiency rather than just whether the training works.