Word: biofeedback
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Turning to another unorthodox tactic, a Chicago doctor, Seymour Diamond, is treating migraines with biofeedback. Using machines that signal physical changes in the body with beeps or flashing lights, Diamond has been able to train some patients at his headache clinic to raise temperatures in the hand by as much as 10° to 15°. As he explains in his recent book More than Two Aspirin (Follett; $8.95), higher temperatures mean an increased flow of blood there?and presumably a reduction elsewhere, including the head. Almost invariably, he reports, the technique stops headaches. Still another imaginative treatment has been introduced...
Every month, Psychology Today (circ. 1.1 million) tells Americans all they might want to know about sex, psychosurgery, biofeedback, insomnia, ultradian rhythms-indeed the whole galaxy of behavioral phenomena, from alienation to Zen. The magazine's success is due largely to its editor in chief and resident visionary since 1969, T (for nothing) George Harris. He turned a jargon-pocked and profitless publication into a Popular Mechanics of human behavior-eminently readable, visually stimulating and worth more than $2 million a year in net profit for its present owner, Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., which bought the magazine...
...letdown was almost inevitable. "Impossible expectations have been raised," Physiological Psychologist Neal Miller of Rockefeller University, a leader in feedback research, told a New York symposium last week. Indeed, actual gains have been modest. Researchers have helped some incontinent patients to gain control of their urination and defecation through biofeedback. Among other researchers, Dr. John Basmajian, a professor of anatomy and rehabilitation medicine at Emory University, reports success in eliminating foot drop - difficulty in raising the foot while walking - though efforts to extend the technique to cerebral palsy victims have failed...
...most common experiments - to lower blood pressure and end migraine headaches - have had mixed results. Biofeedback clearly can affect blood pressure. In one experiment, baboons were trained to maintain a large increase in pressure for 40 days. However, attempts to lower human blood pressure have generally not been significant or lasting outside the laboratory. Despite claims of 80% success, migraine research has been a headache for some biofeedback experimenters because of the placebo effect - a certain number of ailments vanish, not as a result of biofeedback but simply because the patient has faith in the method. Says Miller: "Many...
...inflated hopes for biofeedback may have been related to the growth of interest in Eastern mysticism. Glowingly described by fans as "electronic yoga," biofeedback seemed to offer inner exploration without drugs, religion or psychotherapy. The revelation that biofeedback machines could monitor the brain's alpha waves - associated with relaxation and meditation - led to the proliferation of "alpha" institutes and training centers, many of them now defunct. "Getting high on alpha" peaked in 1973, when some colleges offered credit for alpha experience...