Biofeedback training can be thought of as a means for getting to know more about oneself, both physiologically and psychologically. As such, it involves both precise measurement of psychophysiological systems and imprecise, subjective assessment of various states of being. The client involved in biofeedback training must take an active role in discovering how to relax, how to affect the activity in different mind/body systems, and this must necessarily be done in accordance different mind/body systems, and this must necessarily be done in accordance with that person's specific individual history and way of doing things. Unless the training protocol takes these into account, the full benefits of training will not be available and the client's ability to learn about his or her psychophysiological processes will be limited.
However, because of this need to regulate training protocol according to the needs of the person being trained, it becomes difficult to generate data that is seen as scientifically objective, since no two clients receive exactly the same training. Yet providing a group of clients with identical protocols would, as described above, limit their potential to work out their personal strategies for changing mind/body processes. Thus, biofeedback is not seen as being "scientifically respectable" in some circles because to be fully effective, it must take into account the specific processes of the individual being trained. The catch seems to be that in order for us to learn about human beings in general, we are required to limit the opportunities for the individuals being studied to learn about themselves. When we do this, we produce data that fails to reflect the scope of biofeedback training, which can lead to personal transformation when conducted according to a humanistic protocol geared toward the specific needs, interests, and abilities of the individual.
Abraham Maslow addresses this issue in The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966), when he states:
"If I want to learn something about you as an individual person, then I must approach you as a unit, as a one, as a whole. The customary scientific technique of dissection and reductive analysis that has worked so well in the inorganic world and not too badly even in the infrahuman world of living organisms, is just a nuisance when I seek knowledge of a person, and it has real deficiencies even for studying people in general. . . . Not only must I perceive you holistically, but I must also analyze you holistically rather than reductively" (pp. 11-12).
Maslow discusses different kinds of knowing, and distinguishes between "spectator knowledge" and "experiential knowledge." He states that "at the beginning of science, the word `knowing' meant `knowing of the external physical world,' and for the orthodox scientist it still does" (p. 50). He says that the scientist seeking such knowledge can and should be neutral if he is looking at something utterly strange to him. It is best for the veridicality of his observations that he lay no bets, have no hopes or wishes for one outcome or another. It is most efficient, if he seeks a truthful report, that he move toward being nonaligned and uninvolved (p. 50).
This way of gaining knowledge, while valuable in eliminating personal bias, is most useful in dealing with things outside of oneself, rather than psychophysiological phenomena that are unique to each individual.
Experiential knowledge, on the other hand, recognizes the importance of human identification with the client of study (in the case of psychophysiological training, this identification occurs both in the client's identification with himself or herself as the client of study, and in the rapport that exists between trainer and client). In his studies of peak experiences, Maslow (pp. 52-53) arrived at some characteristics of full and rich experiencing, which in many ways echo the conditions under which the most effective psychophysiological training takes place, as discussed below:
In psychophysiological training, the client is encouraged to focus inward, concentrating only on mind/body activity and avoiding consideration or preoccupation with daily concerns.
In order to concentrate on one's psychophysiological processes, one strives to recognize a particular kind of "self-consciousness," that is, certain attributes of the persona that involve self-protection, and focus with a different kind of self-consciousness: consciousness of the self as an ever-shifting matrix of mind/body activities.
When the client becomes completely focused on his or her own psychophysiological processes, including increasingly subtle levels of activity in various systems, this awareness occurs regardless of external surroundings and events.
In psychophysiological training, the client is experiencing himself or herself in a new way, becoming more and more sensitized to the inner workings and interrelationships of mind/body activities. Because each experience is unique, it is difficult to describe the process fully, but it might be said that as training progresses, clients become more deeply themselves as they gain awareness and control of their psychophysiological ways of being in the world.
As described in chapter 1 of this project, mind/body training results in the recovery of many "childlike" qualities, including the ability to learn quickly, to express feelings more easily, to be more creative, to have more energy, and to recover more quickly from physical and psychological injury and discomfort.
Within the protocol followed at BRI, many psychophysiological systems are measured at different sites, and the client is encouraged to pay attention to what is going on in all modalities and channels even while focusing on one specific system. Often, activity in a system other than the one originally focused upon stimulates a change in direction that uncovers previously unsuspected information.
The nature of psychophysiological training allows the individual to proceed at his or her own pace; indeed, trying to speed things up has a counter effect that discourages relaxation. For this reason, the individual in training may proceed with the confidence that any level of relaxation reached will be safe because the body/mind will have had sufficient practice to prepare for things that might come up as a result of the relaxation. In addition, clients participating in the BRI protocol develop a sense of control over the training which reassures them of their ability to regulate their own rate of relaxation.
As a client learns strategies for self-regulation of psychophysiological systems, he or she becomes increasingly adept at passive volition, allowing change to occur in the desired direction rather than trying to make it happen through willful effort.
Because of the simultaneously objective and subjective nature of psychophysiological training, the client has no need to pay attention to anything but his or her own mind/body activity as the client of study. As such, this activity is neither good nor bad, regardless of its characteristics, and it all provides information for the client to use in real time as well as later.
At BRI, the potential of the client to be "accepting, receiving, being passively seduced" (in the sense of being relaxed, comfortable, secure and at ease) is deliberately cultivated through the provision of an enjoyable, aesthetically engaging and compelling envelope of information reflecting his or her psychophysiological processes. The resulting state of being "relaxed yet alert" fosters an openness to being aware of increasingly subtle mind/body activities.
The BRI protocol allows for selective use of various specialized states of consciousness, with emphasis on both right-brain, intuitive, emotional, holistic learning and left-brain, logical, rational, analytical learning. During training, the fragmentation of experience is discouraged as clients are aware of mind/body activities in various systems and channels simultaneously. Data generated during training is available for analysis later (as well as while it occurs in real time), so there is no need to try to remember psychophysiological events in sequence, or to concentrate on anything besides what is happening in the moment.
Maslow uses Freud's term, "free floating attention," to describe the "noninterfering, global, receptive, waiting kind of cognizing another person" that occurs when a clinician is trying to get to know a client.
Any clinician knows that in getting to know another person it is best to keep your brain out of the way, to look and listen totally, to be completely absorbed, receptive, passive, patient, and waiting rather than eager, quick, and impatient. It does not help to start measuring, questioning, calculating or testing out theories, categorizing, or classifying. If your brain is too busy, you won't hear or see well. (pp. 10-11)
It is precisely this kind of attention that characterizes the "relaxed yet alert" state that is the goal of biofeedback training at BRI. His statement, "If your brain is too busy, you won't hear or see well," can be extended to include the rest of the individual's psychophysiology, which is why, when a person succeeds in quieting his or her psychophysiological systems, a sense of clarity appears and it is possible to explore specialized states of consciousness.
However, in computerized biofeedback psychophysiological training, it is not necessary to choose between "free floating attention" and "measuring, questioning, calculating or testing out theories, categorizing, or classifying." It is simply a matter of employing one's human capacity for gathering "experiential knowledge" while allowing the instrumentation to provide the quantitative and comparative data that give a new perspective on the experience itself. There is no need to relinquish the concrete, measurable, objective information about individual psychophysiological processes, and nothing to prevent the generalization of data obtained through the client-centered protocol to set new parameters for human behavior.