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The first demonstration of human biofeedback a form of learning by association, took place in 1901 when J. H. Bair trained several young men to wiggle their ears. Some folks just don't seem to learn. When exposed to predictable, repeated electric shock, about 99% of us tense up right before the shock. The other 1% show no such reaction. They know it will hurt, but don't seem to care. These individuals, called psychopaths, show lack of conscience. callousness, and a wide variety of other behaviors related to their inability to experience anxiety. How can we control visceral responses to anxiety, such as digestive function, nervous perspiration, heart palpitations, and choking sensations? The way in is through breathing. The act of breathing has both voluntary and involuntary components. Breath training is a method used to change the way we react emotionally. Visualization is an associative technique used by most successful athletes to improve performance. The mere act of visualizing stimulates the same brain areas used in the actual movement being visualized. Violinist Isaac Stern routinely practiced "in his mind" to improve performance. When we speak of dissociation, we often use it in the context of something abnormal. like dissociative identity disorder, which includes multiple personalities. Yet dissociation can be a desired response to certain abnormal situations. The ability to dissociate completely allows us not to experience trauma while it is happening. Unfortunately, we can emotionally experience such trauma later, and that is when we might require assistance. Training in associative strategies is often a matter of simple practice, whether it be visualization exercises, biofeedback training, or classical conditioning paradigms that pair unconditioned stimuli and stimuli to-be-conditioned. But how does one train dissociative strategies? Self-hypnosis involves a collection of procedures designed to reduce distractions and allow us to focus on something other than our immediate surroundings. About 10 - 15% of us have the ability to undergo surgery with no anesthetic, using only the principles of dissociation to not feel pain. Another 70% of us or so can learn these procedures to some degree. while the final 10 - 15% of us find it very difficult to dissociate. Are psychopaths, who can easily dissociate from feelings of anxiety, abnormal individuals who need treatment? Consider non-criminal psychopaths, which include disproportionate numbers of politicians, performers, attorneys, war heroes. bungee jumpers, salesmen, and just about any walk of life in which you are at an advantage if you cannot feel anxiety. Modem American society places value on the ability to feel, but we also place value on cold, callous behavior, especially in the media. What do you think? ,Remember that it the past 50 years, all attempts to directly treat psychopathy as an illness have failed miserably. and many treatment programs have made it worse, because it simply gave the psychopaths an opportunity to fool the therapists. Dissociation has been discussed in terms of altered states of awareness. Experienced meditators are able to decrease alpha wave amplitudes and increase theta amplitudes very quickly. Alpha-theta biofeedback is a procedure that provides the user with constant feedback on alpha and theta amplitudes for training. Whatever the user does to increase theta amplitudes is probably similar to what happens in meditation. Is the brain of the psychopath different? Psychologist Robert Mare has spent a career studying psychopaths. It is possible that the inability to feel anxiety results from low cortical arousal measured with the EEG. It is believed that such people engage in dangerous behavior (legal or illegal) in an attempt to literally arouse their minds.
© 2007 Center for Neurobehavioral Health Ltd.
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