Case Studies in Applied Psychophysiology

Neurofeedback and Biofeedback Treatments for Advances in Human Performance

W. Alex Edmonds, Gershon Tenenbaum, W. Alex Edmonds, Gershon Tenenbaum

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470971734
• eBook ISBN: 9781119954491
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Case Studies in Applied Psychophysiology

What is it that separates those who are able to achieve greatness from those who are not? The secret is flexibility of focus and the consistent activation of a high performance state. Experienced coaches using Biofeedback and Neurofeedback who have developed the tools to facilitate the achievement of this state reveal their unique methods. The book is scholarly and accessible, providing the tools to guiding outstanding performance.

If you are searching for proven methods in achieving performance excellence, read Case Studies in Applied Psychophysiology!

Rae Tattenbaum, Performance Coach at Inner Act, Guest Editor, Special Editions of "Biofeedback" devoted to peak performance, AAPB former chair optimal performance

Many practitioners use biofeedback (BFB) and neurofeedback (NFB) to help individuals bring their personal goals of optimizing performance in domains such as music, dance, sports, and exercise within reach.

Written by veterans in the field, Case Studies in Applied Psychophysiology is the first text to present case studies from practitioners utilizing these techniques. Each case study has been systematically recorded and presents readers with a comprehensive overview of each approach. The case studies demonstrate not only the variety of approaches available to practitioners, but also the unique tailoring of techniques and procedures that seasoned practitioners implement to help clients achieve their goals. The primary focus is on individuals from non-clinical (i.e. not medically related) populations, but two case studies describe neurofeedback interventions with individuals suffering from traumatic brain injuries.

Case Studies in Applied Psychophysiology is a useful introduction to the field, as well as a road map for those looking to incorporate these techniques into their own psychology, sports medicine, physiology, performance psychology, and counseling practices.

Part I

General Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Forwards

Chapter 1

The Use of General Biofeedback in the Pursuit of Optimal Performance

Donald Moss and “Sue” Vietta Wilson

Introduction

Since the opening days of the biofeedback movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the biofeedback paradigm has excited visions of expanding human potential (Moss, 1999). Early biofeedback research showed human beings gaining enhanced awareness and control over visceral physiology (Miller, 1969), musculature (Basmajian, 1967), and states of consciousness (Kamiya, 1969). Barbara Brown, a founder and the first president of the Biofeedback Research Society, proclaimed that biofeedback could give to the human being a new mind and a new body (Brown, 1974). Later, she imaged this new mind as a supermind with expanded consciousness and unlimited potential (Brown, 1980).

Much of Barbara Brown's work, and much of the early speculation rested on the hope that EEG biofeedback would awaken human creativity and enable human beings to reach higher states of consciousness. Using EEG biofeedback to optimize performance is discussed in later chapters. Nevertheless, general biofeedback and EEG biofeedback have been used in tandem, as complementary tools to provide human beings with enhanced awareness of their mind-body lineage, increased control over their physiology, and increased access to self-regulation strategies.

Part I of this book provides examples highlighting the use of General Biofeedback in optimal performance work, including work to enhance the performance of athletes in sport, improve the learning of students in the classroom, and intensify the creativity and performance of artists in music, the graphic arts, and other artistic arenas. Clinical application and research investigations with biofeedback have steadily grown since the 1970s. Readers seeking additional general information are referred to the following sources: Blumenstein, Bar-Eli, and Tenenbaum (2002); Collins and McPherson (2006); Hatfield and Landers (1983); Leonards (2003a, 2003b); Petruzzello, Landers and Salazar (1991); Sime (1985); Strack and Sime (2011); Tenenbaum, Corbett, and Kitsantas (2002); and Zaichkowsky and Fuchs (1988). Readers interested in learning more about applications of EEG and neurofeedback to sports are referred to Thompson et al. (2008); Hatfield, Haufler, and Spalding (2006); Hatfield and Hillman (2001); Lawton et al. (1998); Vernon (2005); and Wilson, Sime, and Harkness (in press for 2011).

Paradigms in Biofeedback Assisted Optimal Performance Work

Several conceptual paradigms have been utilized by biofeedback professionals in optimal performance work. Although they overlap, each highlights a dimension or direction for applying biofeedback to remove impediments to performance and elicit maximal physiological responsiveness.

The Relaxation Paradigm

In clinical biofeedback, cultivation of the “relaxation response” is a central model driving the majority of biofeedback applications (Benson, 1975). In general, autonomic nervous system vigilance and tense and braced musculature are not conducive to optimal functioning in sports (see Zaichkowsky and Fuchs, 1988, for a review), music, and stage performance. Biofeedback assisted relaxation therapy can counteract many of the negative effects of stress in performance. In addition, biofeedback-assisted relaxation can affect functional measures reflective of athletic performance. Caird, McKenzie, and Sleivert (1999), for example, utilized multimodal biofeedback (heart rate and respiratory measures) to augment relaxation training in long-distance runners, and showed improvements in running economy, peak oxygen consumption, and peak running velocity. Similarly Wilson and Bird (1981) compared relaxation and muscle biofeedback for flexibility to a control condition, and showed that both relaxation and biofeedback produced improved hip flexion in gymnasts.

Alleviating Dysponesis

Many performing artists and athletes develop neuromuscular pain problems, some of them recurrent and eventually chronic, due to kinesiologically inefficient postures and tension patterns during performance. The Whatmore and Kohli (1968, 1974) concept of dysponesis (misplaced effort or maladaptive tensing of the musculature) highlights the essence of this problem: Organisms suffer from misdirected effort. The nineteenth century Shakespearean actor F.M. Alexander studied his chronic vocal problems, and identified destructive postural patterns constricting the vocal chords. His self-care evolved into the Alexander Technique, in which therapists study postural misalignment as the source of a variety of symptoms (Moss and Shane, 1999). A current example of alleviating dysponesis with biofeedback is seen in Riley (2011), who identified maladaptive postures and alignment in pianists, measurable with surface electromyography (SEMG); these patterns produce high levels of muscle tension, fatigue, discomfort, and pain. There is a musical performance deficit as well, when muscles suffer repetitive strain. Riley uses SEMG biofeedback and video feedback to retrain posture at the keyboard.

Moderating Anxious Cognitive Processes

Ruminative and anxious thinking frequently hinders optimal responsiveness on the athletic field. Vietta Wilson has utilized EEG training to combat “busy brain,” training athletes to respond instinctively and without nonproductive thought processes (Wilson, Peper, and Moss, 2006; Wilson, Sime, and Harkness, in press). Also, Lagos et al. (2008) have utilized heart rate variability biofeedback to reduce anxious thoughts as a means to improve golf performance in a single case.

Resolving Psychological Distress that Undermines Optimal Performance

Physiological tension is often an accompaniment of lingering psychological conflicts, traumatic experiences, and conflicts. Biofeedback can be paired with psychologically oriented therapies to more effectively resolve the psychological problems. Leddick (2011) reported on an integrative approach combining neurofeedback with psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the treatment of an under-achieving musician. Wilson and Peper (2011) combine a number of biofeedback and neurofeedback modalities with a cognitive approach to resolving serious anger episodes in a teen tennis player. The biofeedback training seems to facilitate the psychological resolution and vice versa.

Enhancing Optimal Physiological Responsiveness

Relaxation is not the answer to every competitive problem. Rather, the capacity to relax away maladaptive tensions, while exerting with an optimal level of intensity in critical moments, provides a more comprehensive approach (Taylor, 1996). Skill training is critical in sports and performing arts, and the performer needs to develop an instinctive recruitment of skills in response to ever-changing demands in the moment. Prior to successful performance there is a deceleration in heart rate (HRD) and this corresponds to faster reaction and accompanies a process of orientation and readiness. Researchers such as Hatfield, Landers, and Ray (1984); Landers et al. (1980); and Wang (1987); and Landers, Boutcher, and Wang (1986) confirmed this was the case in sport performance, mainly with shooters. Carlstedt (2001) utilized ambulatory monitoring, and showed that HRD was evident prior to action phases in tennis. In his sample, the competitors with greater HRD won the matches.

Reducing Reaction Time

The outcomes of many track and field events are determined by how quickly the participant can get off the blocks. Reaction time training involves focusing interventions on reducing that initial reaction time. Vietta Wilson (2001) used reaction time training from the blocks for sprinters prior to the 1988 Olympics. Pierre Beauchamp and colleagues applied reaction time biofeedback to training Canadian speed skaters in preparations for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics (Harvey et al., 2011). The authors emphasized reaction time as one factor, in conjunction with pre-start routine, start technique, start power and acceleration, and start confidence, in preparing the skaters for Olympic gold.

The Field of Optimal Performance Psychophysiology

Optimal Performance Psychophysiology: Defined

The related fields of optimal performance psychophysiology, sports psychophysiology, and performing arts psychophysiology all seek to apply the tools of stress management, muscle kinesiology, biofeedback, and neurofeedback, to remediate performance related disorders and to optimize performance. The approach of psychophysiology emphasizes the indivisibility of mind and body, and the value of integrating behavioral, mental, and physiological tools for performance focused interventions. The ultimate question framing this field is: How can we utilize psychophysiological tools and approaches to enable human beings to reach their highest level of performance and functioning.

Applications of Optimal Performance Psychophysiology

Optimal Performance Psychophysiology has obvious value for elite performers on the stage and the athletic field, as well as for the teen athlete, the athlete in training, and musicians and stage performers at all levels of expertise. Further, there is also value in transferring the optimal performance paradigm to clinical treatment and other sectors of life. There are instances in clinical treatment where an over-focus on alleviating pathology or problems produces a diminished concept of the human being, and self-limits the possible results. Although this will not be the emphasis of this section of the book, it is useful to pose to clinical patients or business executives the optimal performance question: How can we organize your energy and our interventions to help you become everything that you are capable of becoming?

A Brief History

The history of psychophysiological approaches to sports performance pre-dates the era of modern biofeedback. Coleman Roberts Griffith, who is regarded as the “father of sports psychology,” began scientific study of the effects of psychological factors on athletics in 1918, and highlighted the place of psychomotor skills, and the measurement of reaction time (Kroll and Lewis, 2007). He demonstrated the importance of utilizing a laboratory for research in athletics (Griffith, 1930). Many of the basic scientific principles now utilized in sport psychophysiology also predate the biofeedback movement. The neurophysiology of the musculature was outlined first by Edmund Jacobson (1938) and later by John Basmajian (1967). The relationship between heart rate deceleration and performance was outlined by Lacey and Lacey (1974) and Porges (1972). Although research was being completed in biofeedback and sport since the early 1970s, the birth of sport psychophysiology as a self-conscious movement, goes back only three decades, to a breakthrough paper by Zaichowsky and Sime (1982), which advocated the application of stress management concepts in the newly defined field of sport psychophysiology.

Since 1982, several individuals have actively strived to move the field of optimal performance psychophysiology forward: Wesley Sime (2003), Vietta Wilson and Erik Peper (Wilson and Peper, 2011), Marcie Zinn (Zinn and Zinn, 2003), Len Zaichowsky (Zaichkowsky and Fuchs, 1988), Gershon Tenenbaum (Tenenbaum, Corbett, and Kitsantas, 2002), and Rae Tattenbaum (Tattenbaum and Moss, 2011).

Biofeedback Tools for Optimal Performance: Modalities

Biofeedback applications to optimal performance have utilized surface electromyography (SEMG), and electroencephalography (EEG) extensively, and temperature, heart rate, heart rate variability, electrodermal measures, and respiration to a lesser extent. We turn now to a discussion of these modalities, with the exception of EEG, which is discussed elsewhere in this book.

Surface Electromyography

Early work in the use of general biofeedback for optimal performance relied heavily on the surface electromyograph (SEMG), and this measure of muscle tension patterns has continued to be useful, especially in overcoming maladaptive muscle habits that inhibit more effective performance, and which lead to the many pain syndromes plaguing athletes and performance artists. George Whatmore and Daniel Kohli (1974), mentioned earlier for advancing the concept of dysponesis, used eight channels of SEMG monitoring to identify specific destructive muscle habits. Later this concept of muscular dysponesis was applied by a variety of individuals within the biofeedback movement, to identify self-defeating muscle habits affecting both athletes and performing artists. Early leaders in this direction were Wilson and Bird (1981) and Cummings, Wilson and Bird (1984), who used the SEMG to reduce muscle tension in the hamstring of gymnasts and increase their flexibility, and to improve flexibility in sprinters.

Electrodermal Activity

The electrodermograph (EDR) imposes an imperceptible current across the skin and measures how easily it travels through the skin. When anxiety raises the level of sweat in a sweat duct, conductance increases (Shaffer and Moss, 2006). The EDR is a useful biofeedback tool for cognitive quieting and emotional regulation. Ideally, athletes will shift spontaneously and flexibly between cognitively quiet states a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• About the Editors and Contributing Authors
• Part I: General Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Forwards
• Part II: Case Presentations
• Part III: Certification, Equipment, and Future Directions
• Index