The development of sophisticated technology for monitoring the body's various systems and the increasing emphasis on taking personal responsibility for health, as well as the gradual shift away from seeing the mind and body as two independent entities, has provided new dimensions in the field of physical and psychological health over the past ten years.
Biofeedback is a discipline in which information regarding many of the body's systems can be presented to the individual, who can then work towards controlling or modifying functions which were previously considered not amenable to self-regulation. This technological ability to monitor and feed back information on body processes has led to a new understanding of the relationship between the mind and the body, and has made possible the detection of subtle physiological levels, bioelectric measures and associated kinesthetic awareness. It has also changed the role of the client from that of passive receiver of medical intervention to active participant in modification of physical patterns and habits of mind.
As a biofeedback practitioner, designer, educator, and founder of the Bio Research Institute in Cotati, California, I have dedicated the past fifteen years to advancing an understanding of the relationships between the mind and body, particularly as they pertain to healing of the body and spirit. I have followed and contributed to the development of the discipline of biofeedback, particularly computerized biofeedback, and worked to develop an alliance between the medical community and biofeedback practitioners, while establishing the Bio Research Institute as a resource for clients, researchers, physicians, and health care providers. As the field of biofeedback expands and new technologies become available to monitor ever subtler activities of the mind and body, new ways of understanding the human organism will develop so that an individual will gain increased control of his or her physical and psychological health.
When biofeedback came upon the scene in the early 1970s, many were intuitively excited by its potential for facilitating transformational changes in people, but the simple instrumentation and clinical technique then available stood in the way of this potential being realized. In the mean time, partly due to the economic necessity of translating biofeedback into a practical therapeutic model, many practitioners lost sight of biofeedback's deeper applications and instead emphasized its usefulness as part of the established medical paradigm, in an adjunctive role.
I became interested in biofeedback because of my desire to participate in a therapeutic model that allowed both a humanistic approach and provided quantitative and qualitative means for understanding the psychological and physiological state of an individual. I intuitively believed that the human psychological experience would invariably be correlated with physiological states, and that working with both simultaneously would promote therapeutic transformation and developmental change in individuals. It was with this in mind that I established the Bio Research Institute (BRI), and began to develop an enhanced biofeedback training protocol which I refer to as BioIntegration (advanced mind/body training).
This protocol differs from standard biofeedback practices in that it respects the developmental potential of each individual and encourages transformation at the rate uniquely appropriate to the person. This training is carried out through a multi-channel and multi-modality feedback strategy, which not only recognizes the importance of relative psychophysiological change, but acknowledges the value of training for absolute levels.
At BRI, biofeedback training and research has been geared in two concurrent directions--toward providing "remedial" training for individuals with specific presenting complaints, and toward achieving "life after normal." This training aims at providing a path out of our habitual patterns of consciousness and behavior so that we may facilitate personal and evolutionary development.
I call this approach "BioIntegration," and it is a process by which an individual, through multi-modality training, links internal and external life events such that he or she is able to make more real-time choices instead of being unconsciously dominated by habitual patterns. This training employs a strategy of "permission with precision," which reflects a theoretical basis that can be thought of as a hybridization of humanism and traditional science. This approach recognizes that although human beings are driven largely by unconscious psychophysiological patterns and genetic programs, they are also capable of achieving self-regulation and heightened self-awareness, and as a result they can make deliberate choices that affect both personal and species-wide evolution.
As I increased the depth of clinical training and data analysis at BRI, I realized that this work began to raise a number of fundamental questions regarding the nature of psychophysiology and biofeedback training. These include: What is relaxation? Why relax? Why is relaxation so alluring? Why is it so hard to relax? Why do clients exhibit such a great psychophysiological resistance to relaxing, e.g., when a person is relaxing, why is there such a strong tendency to move out of this state? Why doesn't the human organism know how to relax to beneficial levels automatically? What psychophysiological mechanisms prevent full relaxation, or provide for it? Why is there a tendency for humans to maintain increasingly higher levels of tension throughout their lives?
Years of studying the results of initial, intermediate and advanced mind/body training have suggested a number of possible answers to these questions. In this article, I will describe a general framework for the psychophysiology of consciousness, which includes a distinction between two basic kinds of consciousness, which I call primary (autonomic) consciousness and secondary consciousness. I suggest that when we talk about the human personality, we are really talking about a pattern of consciousness states, which is reflective of the psychophysiological condition of the individual. Within this framework, personality traits may be seen as specialized states of consciousness, associated with special psychophysiological patterns habitually experienced by the individual. Psychology is not only mapped to physiology, but psychology should really be understood as psychophysiology, since separating the body from the psyche is an artificial and misleading way of looking at the human experience.
As the psychophysiology of the person is developed and reinforced throughout life, it supports a matrix of mind/body activity that maintains a particular stasis for the individual. I suggest three interconnecting conditions that maintain this stasis:
This matrix of psychophysiological activity sustained by the individual is in part characterized by a complex electromagnetic field. The ability to measure this field makes it possible to feed back information about it to the person; this information, coupled with training goals, provides a clear path for beneficial change and self-knowledge. Biofeedback instrumentation measures aspects of this field in specific physiological systems, e.g., brainwave activity (EEG), muscle activity (EMG), heart activity (EKG), as well as direct and indirect electromagnetic activity in other body systems.
This activity reflects a number of things: the genetic and hereditary design of the individual; the individual's specialized organization of that genetic and hereditary design in response to life experiences (psychophysiological strategies for survival); and perhaps the respective prominence of primary (autonomic) and secondary consciousness in the individual's life.
Autonomic consciousness. Within this theoretical framework, all forms of life are recognized as having autonomic consciousness, a means of governing action so as to adapt to environmental influences and maintain life. This corresponds with the common understanding of autonomic functions as those which do not involve deliberate thought, such as photosynthesis, breathing, blood circulation, etc. The physiological complexity of the organism determines the nature of its primary consciousness and potential for secondary consciousness.
In addition, I include the instinctive behaviors necessary for meeting survival needs, such as food, shelter, procreation, and concomitant behaviors such as territoriality, pack animal behavior, the fight-or-flight response, hunting and gathering, and other survival strategies, as being driven by autonomic consciousness.
Psychological traits that have been traditionally thought of as enduring also make up part of this autonomic consciousness; they are both hereditary in nature and they involve psychophysiological strategies for survival that one has unknowingly created, typically during childhood. These traits are often unconsciously maintained throughout life.
Such specialized strategies, which are also represented throughout the mind and body by specialized electromagnetic fields, correspond with behaviors that have been described as traditional personality classifications, as well as individual idiosyncrasies. They are habitual patterns that are played out in response to internal and external life events. Such psychophysiological strategies for survival may become autonomic in nature, that is, they may become automatically executing patterns and behaviors. Due to the prevalence of autonomic consciousness in our lives, I believe that we have far fewer choices than we imagine. This can be illustrated by examining human behavior as exemplified in day-to-day life.
For example, an observer watching the human life cycle for a 24-hour period in New York City would see a small amount of activity just before dawn. As the day began to unfold, he would see people pouring into the city for the daily hunting and gathering activities (at the stock exchange, law office, or whatever). Near sunset, these individuals return to their huts (or condominiums), and prepare to repeat the cycle. Although the circumstances of the activities may differ between cultures and over centuries, the core behavior is essentially the same. Most of our energy is devoted to serving autonomic consciousness. Although we have developed many kinds of jobs, many types of houses, and many places for acquiring food, most of our choices in these areas remain bounded by an established framework.
This framework is psychophysiological in nature, and if it were possible to change one's psychophysiology, one could create more choices.
However, autonomic consciousness has a strength and momentum of its own, and it will attempt to maintain itself through specialized activities, both personal and internal (i.e., behaviors that reflect high levels of individual physiological activity), and cultural and external (i.e., socially accepted standards that promote and maintain psychophysiological arousal).
External examples include societal preoccupations that sustain a particular level of stress, such as the emphasis on financial success and the strategy for achieving it that is characteristic of contemporary western culture. These preoccupations are indelibly linked with individual activities that mirror, create, and maintain societal standards.
Internal examples of the momentum of autonomic consciousness include psychophysiological activity that is resistant to change. I have observed that some of this activity exhibits a periodicity, that is, it recurs at varying levels of magnitude and frequency, often unknown to the individual. These patterns of activity appear to execute themselves automatically, often in opposition to the client's training or life goals; they are reduced or eliminated with continued training, which provides a platform and accurate method for soothing these autonomic responses.
BioIntegration is an example of one of humanity's more recent attempts to cultivate a more liberating form of consciousness, which I refer to as secondary consciousness. I believe that many ancient disciplines, such as yoga and meditation, were born into existence by secondary consciousness for the express purpose of transcending autonomic function. Other traditional strategies for achieving broader states of consciousness have involved other techniques, such as the use of psychoactive drugs, which result in more rapid changes in consciousness.
Advanced mind/body training at BRI, while sharing the goal of transforming consciousness (that is, freeing individuals to make more beneficial choices) differs from these traditions because it allows comparatively rapid progress from one state of consciousness to another, and provides a safe, gentle and orderly path out to one's own boundaries through a self-regulated exploration format.
Secondary consciousness. As previously described, primary (autonomic) consciousness includes the basic attributes we share with other animals, such as the need for food, the drive toward procreation, and the imperative for survival in general. It also manifests itself in many of the psychological patterns that we carry through our lives.
On the other hand, secondary consciousness includes the natural desire for self-actualization and transpersonal or spiritual development. Like primary consciousness, secondary consciousness is inherent within human beings, but it becomes more readily available when particular relationships between psychophysiological systems have been achieved. It is characterized by a less individualized focus, in which persons are motivated to act with the interests of others in mind, and by gentler, more loving emotional states. This state corresponds with specific psychophysiological levels of activity that are associated with the decoupling of inappropriate autonomic responses.
Ironically, the striving of secondary consciousness to break through the dominance of primary (autonomic) consciousness produces a good deal of stress in the lives of many individuals, and therefore can decrease the opportunity of secondary consciousness to manifest, since stress activity is largely in the domain of autonomic consciousness, which generally hinders beneficial transformation.
Biofeedback and consciousness. Human consciousness is generally considered to be more developed than that of less complicated life forms, by virtue of the human capacity for self-reflection and the ability to make choices based on cognitive analysis of internal and external environmental influences. This is distinguished from the purely instinct-driven awareness that is commonly understood to be characteristic of other animals. In this condition of autonomic or primary consciousness, the organism does not make self-reflective choices in response to events so much as executes a pre-existing program determined by its genetic makeup.
However, humans are also capable of self-reflection and objectivity. We can be aware of ourselves as choice-making agents, and can examine and react to situations in a number of ways. We tend, therefore, to think of ourselves as being very different from other forms of life, and we believe that most of our decisions and actions are based on reasoning and objective analysis of the environment in which we operate.
I suspect, however, that this is an incomplete understanding of ourselves, and that we are far closer to the animal kingdom than we might imagine ourselves to be.
Our genetically driven consciousness occupies a large portion of our overall awareness and activity. We unknowingly use this survival mentality to cope with various stressors in life. In general, the greater the stress, the more likely we are to automatically employ this consciousness, to "behave like animals" experiencing "fight or flight" responses in relation to physical or psychological stress. Throughout our evolution, this autonomic consciousness state is the one with which we have had the most experience, and it is also the one that is prompted and expected by the rest of society. Its focus is the immediate survival of the individual. Thus it is that when humans face stressful circumstances, they tend to respond by making poorer choices and interacting more crudely with one another.
However, it is also clear that humans have the capacity for other states of consciousness which are often more appropriate for most contemporary life situations. Historically, we have reached these states of consciousness by following various disciplines, including those of the mystical traditions, meditation, and philosophical pursuits. The states of consciousness that result from these activities tend to look and feel very different from autonomic consciousness, so different that they are often not recognized as being suitable for everyday activities.
The reason that these states of consciousness "feel" different from our usual autonomic states is that they are supported by different psychophysiological activities.
Even when we recognize problematic behavior and realize that it has negative effects on our overall health and well being, we still do not have a readily available means of altering this "program." Our analytic, cognitive capabilities alone rarely provide us with pathways out of autonomic consciousness. We need to acknowledge and experience the link between our physiological selves and our analytic and choice-making behaviors so that we can be aware that we do have choices, and distinguish between making real choices and thinking that we are choosing when we really aren't.
When we break out of our genetically driven autonomic consciousness (into which traumatic life experiences may also have become encoded), by decoupling the fight-or-flight response and other habitual responses and limiting our reliance on our analytic capacities to master life circumstances, we make room for the process of self-actualization. This involves the development of human qualities that must be specifically nurtured; they do not develop automatically alongside of our abilities to reason (indeed, these analytic abilities are sometimes used as means to inhibit the spiritual or transcendent aspects of the individual).
Biofeedback training, particularly advanced mind/body training, presents individuals with new perspectives of themselves, and allows them to develop capacities for changing genetic, hereditary and individual survival strategies that, left unchecked, may lead to distress and disease, and limit actualization of potential. I have observed that gentle, appropriate alteration of these problematic psychophysiological patterns through advanced mind/body training allows a naturally occurring phenomenon to take place, the greater availability of secondary consciousness. As this happens, the individual begins to make more "right choices" in life that reflect his or her increased mind/body clarity. With the ability to perceive surrounding events in more global and precise ways, a greater intuitive and creative capacity develops.
Biofeedback training promotes changes in consciousness that reflect changes in psychophysiological processes, specifically the diminishing of acute and chronic sympathetic nervous system innervation and inappropriate parasympathetic activity. Most biofeedback training focuses on achieving relative change, that is, achieving psychophysiological patterns that are less characterized by inappropriate activation. Achieving relative change can be key to relieving symptoms such as pain.
In addition to helping clients achieve these relative changes in psychophysiological patterns, BRI has established standards for absolute physiological change, that is, levels that reflect the general human capacity for change. These standards, which I intuitively believed existed, have been supported by observed clinical changes and the analysis of data provided by individuals in advanced mind/body training. They provide some idea of what human beings are capable of as they free themselves from the psychophysiological patterns that characterize the presenting complaint.
I have observed that once clients identify negative patterns and link them to specific mind/body relationships, they can develop strategies for transcending these patterns. When clients persist in training to the point that the change becomes enduring and they no longer support the negative patterns, they become able to realize previously unsuspected capacities.
At BRI, traditional scientific tools are used in conjunction with humanistic procedures to facilitate change. The Institute's protocol recognizes the humanistic value of honoring each client's unique way of learning and being. The mixture of this humanistic protocol and precise measurement of objective physiological data provides a useful means of gaining knowledge of human development.
In contrast, traditional scientific experimentation is based on principles of replicability and uniform procedures for all subjects designed to provide quantifiable results. However, BRI protocol adapts to the needs of individual clients and tracks their progress in terms of relative change, simultaneously encouraging them to respond to emerging capabilities through the establishment of training goals. The precise instrumentation and complex representations of psychophysiological data provide objective information about a very subjective process.
One of the struggles within humanistic psychology has been to document the human transformational process in a scientifically respectable manner. This has been problematic for a number of reasons, not least of which is the tension between the desire for scientific, "hard data" produced through experimentally replicable means, and the need to honor the individual needs and rate of progress of each client. I believe I have created a strategy for producing meaningful, generalizable data while respecting the unique nature and needs of each client. I believe this strategy provides both a practical and theoretical platform for the documentation of transformation and self-actualization.
Through advanced mind/body training, we become increasingly reliable instruments for self-exploration because we learn to distinguish our thoughts from our feelings; to experience our feelings in both their physical and psychological aspects, as they occur; and to experience them as feelings rather than as intellectual constructs.
In addition, I suspect that such learning directly fosters the development of intuition, which I see as being more closely related to our emotional capabilities than to our cognitive capacities. When one is capable of distinguishing the subtleties of emotional phenomena, one becomes more intuitively capable and inclined to incorporate intuition in daily life.
Central to the philosophical basis of BRI is the notion that human beings learn most effectively when information is presented as pleasingly and interestingly as possible, engaging the individual on many different levels. This approach gave rise to the idea of making audio and graphic presentation of psychophysiological data as whole-person oriented as possible. The overall goal is to make it possible for the client to work within a self-driven audiovisual envelope, taking what is inside, reflecting it outside, and feeding it back inside again. In essence, what they are actually learning is to modify the electromagnetic field that emanates from them.
Making the training experience as pleasurable as possible acts as a carrier wave that promotes continued effort. This method contrasts with traditional learning strategies but is especially appropriate to the discipline of biofeedback. It calls for the individual to discover new ways of self-regulation that go beyond the exercise of volition as it is commonly practiced. The goal of being "relaxed yet alert" cannot be reached in the same way that other goals are sometimes reached, by "trying harder," utilizing the concentration of focus that correlates with increased states of psychophysiological arousal. Rather, successful self-regulation is dependent upon the client's ability to not cause excessive arousal while maintaining alertness and focus. I have found that this skill is best learned in an environment that is geared toward both the logical and intuitive capacities of individuals, providing sensory stimulation and information of many kinds within a framework that is aesthetically appealing in spatial, logical, and emotional terms.
With this in mind, the presentation of data at BRI has been specifically designed so that the information can be easily understood and integrated with other information. For example, the Bio Integrator presents real-time data to clients in a variety of aesthetically engaging formats: animated mandalas that move and fill in with color in response to the client's physiological activity, three-dimensional spectral displays, and other carefully constructed graphs that appeal to analytic and intuitive sensibilities of each client. Such considerations of aesthetic as well as logical needs of both client and researcher encourage continued training.
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