Description of a Session
Every biofeedback therapy session is part educational and part experiential. An understanding of the psychophysiology of stress and its effect on the body, an explanation of the biofeedback instrumentation, and the clinical goals of the training all help to set the context for the work to be done.

Comprehensive biofeedback treatment involves a three-phase process: initial evaluation, skills training, and therapy. In the evaluation phase, the client receives a psychophysiological profile which is a measure of his or her baseline response to a moderate stressor. The individual is connected to the biofeedback machine through sensors or electrodes where even minute auditory or visual changes in biofeedback signals are recognized. Skills training consists of learning how to read these biofeedback signals (based on shifts in psychophysiological responses), while simultaneously mastering various self-regulation strategies and relaxation methods to induce greater control. In biofeedback-assisted psychotherapy, for example, patients attend to the emotional changes and thoughts associated with sympathetic nervous system arousal to learn more adaptive coping mechanisms and responses. In general, as training progresses, psychophysiological shifts continue to increase and the ability to sense these changes is enhanced. In effect, the individual learns very concretely how it feels to be relaxed and how to change a particular function such as heart rate, muscle tension, or brain wave activity. Weekly home practice assignments reinforce this learning and assist in integrating these learned skills into everyday life situations. Over the course of treatment the goal is to be able to create and generalize these bodily changes without the use of the biofeedback instrumentation.

Course of Treatment
The instrumentation used, the number of sessions required and the frequency of sessions vary according to the condition being treated, as does the amount of follow up suggested to maintain the new learned behaviors. Sessions can range from between 8-15 sessions up to 40 or 50 sessions at biweekly, weekly or monthly intervals.

Side Effects
The lack of side effects or adverse reactions makes biofeedback an attractive treatment alternative. A beneficial outcome, however, requires a commitment of time and effort if improvement is to be achieved and maintained. The individual’s level of motivation is thus a key to the success of the therapy as well as the desire to actively participate in one’s treatment regimen.

Safety Issues
Biofeedback training itself is completely safe. It is recommended, however, that before starting treatment the individual’s physician be consulted to determine if conventional medical treatment is needed first. In addition people with hypertension, diabetes or other systemic conditions should be monitored by their primary doctor so that medication levels can be adjusted, if necessary, to correspond to changes achieved through biofeedback training, such as lowered blood pressure or better blood sugar level control.

Other Modalities That Work Well With Biofeedback
Biofeedback works well with other complementary/alternative modalities, and in fact any modality that enhances the relaxation state, such as autogenic training, meditation, self-hypnosis, mental imagery or aromatherapy, can be of added benefit.

Content last modified on Mar 19, 2003