{"id":60,"date":"2009-07-05T02:57:37","date_gmt":"2009-07-05T09:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nealmiller.org\/?p=60"},"modified":"2009-07-05T02:57:37","modified_gmt":"2009-07-05T09:57:37","slug":"60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nealmiller.org\/?p=60","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The Origins of Biofeedback<\/p>\n

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The contributions of many earlier researchers and practitioners can be cited as forerunners of biofeedback:<\/p>\n

Edmund Jacobsen commenced research at Harvard in 1908, and throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s worked<\/p>\n

to develop progressive muscle relaxation as an effective behavioral technique for the alleviation of neurotic<\/p>\n

tensions and many functional medical disorders (Jacobsen, 1938). He used crude electromyographic<\/p>\n

equipment to monitor the levels of muscle tension in his patients during the course of treatment. The German<\/p>\n

Johann Schultz contributed autogenic training in the 1930’s, a discipline for creating a deep low-arousal<\/p>\n

condition, with a pervasive quieting effect on the autonomic nervous system (Schultz and Luthe, 1959). B. F.<\/p>\n

Skinner, Albert Bandura, Joseph Wolpe, and others extended the operant training principles of the animal<\/p>\n

laboratory into a refined science of behavior therapy and behavior modification through instrumental learning<\/p>\n

(Skinner, 1969; Bandura, 1969; Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966). The building blocks were in place for a science<\/p>\n

of self-regulation by the 1960’s.<\/p>\n

The scientific emergence of biofeedback is a good example of synchronicity. A number of independent areas<\/p>\n

of scientific work converged and overlapped, until a community of researchers recognized their common<\/p>\n

ground. Kenneth Gaarder points out that biofeedback was not so much a discovery, as it was “an awareness<\/p>\n

which emerged from the Zeitgeist” (Gaarder, 1979). Many researchers of the 1950’s and 1960’s can be<\/p>\n

cited as independent founders of biofeedback. I will highlight here the early work on EEG, visceral learning,<\/p>\n

electromyography, and incontinence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Operant Control of EEG and the Pursuit of Alpha States<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the late 1950’s, Joe Kamiya studied the phenomenon of internal perception or the awareness of private<\/p>\n

internal experiencing. Seredipitously, he discovered that a subject could learn through feedback to reliably<\/p>\n

discriminate between alpha and beta dominant cortical states, and then further demonstrated that a subject<\/p>\n

could learn to produce such alpha or beta brain states on demand (Kamiya, 1969, 1994; Gaarder &<\/p>\n

Montgomery, 1977, p. 4). Kamiya’s continuing work on voluntary production of alpha states coincided with<\/p>\n

the dawning counter-cultural interest in altered states of consciousness, and the emergence of a new interest<\/p>\n

in Eastern religions, the psychology of consciousness, and in transpersonal psychology (Moss & Keen,<\/p>\n

1981; deSilva, 1981).<\/p>\n

This was the era in which Timothy Leary was attracting media attention, by encouraging youth to use LSD to<\/p>\n

discover new levels of human consciousness. In August 1969 the renowned social psychologist, Dr. Richard<\/p>\n

Alpert, renamed as Ram Dass, gave a presentation to the annual meeting of the Association for Humanistic<\/p>\n

Psychology on “The Transformation of a Man from Scientist to Mystic.”<\/p>\n

Alpha brain states are most closely associated with a creative, open awareness, or with a receptive,<\/p>\n

meditative state. Kamiya’s research gave birth to a new humanistic dream, of human beings learning to<\/p>\n

cultivate a spiritually awakened state, within a relatively short time frame, and through the guidance of<\/p>\n

electronic monitoring. Now human beings could explore higher states of consciousness without psychedelic<\/p>\n

drugs.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Origins of Biofeedback The contributions of many earlier researchers and practitioners can be cited as forerunners of biofeedback: Edmund Jacobsen commenced research at Harvard in 1908, and throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s worked to develop progressive muscle relaxation as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21,4],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biofeedback","tag-biofeedback","tag-history"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t