Hemi-Sync® Journal 1990-2 (Spring)

--- PAGE 1 (OCR) --- HEMI-SYNC | Journa Vol. VIII Spring 1990 No.2 A Publication of The Monroe Institute Professional Division IN THIS ISSUE EEG and Subjective Correlates of Alpha- Frequency Binaural Beats Stimulation Combined with Alpha Biofeedback .......... 1 Abstract excerpted from the doctoral dissertation of Dale S. Foster, Ph.D. Reflections on Using Hemi-Syne in Psychotherapy ........... ieee 2 Psychoanalyst Sylvia B. Perera, M.A., offers insights into the role of Hemi-Sync within the client-therapist relationship. Epstein-Barr and Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome Symptoms Relieved with Hemi-Sync .. . . . 3 Jill Russell, L.C.S.P., and Ronald Russell, M.A., present clients’ symptom management techniques using Hemi-Sync. Brainmapping Project Update ..... heeeeeenees 4 F. Holmes Atwater, TMI’s Brainmapping Project Coordinator, reports on the current status of the Brainmapping Project. Jin Shin Jyutsu and Hemi-Sync in the Treatment of Quadriplegia............ 6 Ina case study, ChowChow Imamoto, R.N., Ms.D., describes her use of energy balancing techniques combined with Hemi-Sync. EEG AND SUBJECTIVE CORRELATES OF ALPHA FREQUENCY BINAURAL BEATS STIMULATION COMBINED WITH ALPHA BIOFEEDBACK by Dale S. Foster, Ph.D. Dale Foster is a counseling psychologist in Germantown, Tennessee, and has been a member of the Professional Division since 1987. He holds a master of arts in religion degree in counseling from Harding Graduate School and recently received his doctoral degree from Memphis State University. The following article is the abstract from Dr. Foster's dissertation excerpted for the HEMI-SYNC JOURNAL. f[ed.: also see BREAKTHROUGH, Vol. VIL, No. 4, “Hemi-Sync and the Personal Computer. ..”] T purpose of this study was to determine the effects of alpha frequency binaural beats stimulation combined with alpha biofeedback on alpha frequency brain-wave production and subjective experience of mental and physical relaxation. The study compared the alpha brain-wave production and subjective report of mental and physical relaxation of four groups, each of which received brief relaxation response training and one of four treatments: 1) alpha frequency binaural beats stimulation, 2) visual alpha frequency _brain-wave biofeedback, 3) alpha frequency binaural beats stimulation combined with visual alpha biofeedback, or 4) artificially produced ocean surf sounds. Sixty volunteer undergraduate and graduate students were randomly assigned to the four groups and instructed to util- ize their respective treatment as the “mental device” in Benson's relaxation response paradigm while they relaxed with eyes open for twenty minutes. © 1990 The Monroe Institute Route 1, Box 175, Faber, VA 22938 804/361-1252 --- PAGE 2 (OCR) --- HEMI-SYNC JOURNAL Two 2 X 4 mixed ANOVAs revealed that all groups evidenced increased subjective reports of relaxation and in- creased alpha production. An interaction effect was found in which the group with both alpha binaural beats and alpha biofeedback produced more treatment alpha than the group with alpha biofeedback alone. Additionally, nine of the fif- teen subjects with both binaural beats and feedback reported being able to control alpha production via their focus on the alpha binaural beats. The data suggest the possibility that binaural beats can be used to evoke specific cortical poten- tials through a frequency-following response. Further inves- tigation is warranted into the possibilities of using binaural beats alone and in conjunction with brain-wave biofeedback to promote the self-regulation and management of con- sciousness. REFLECTIONS ON USING HEMI-SYNC IN PSYCHOTHERAPY by Sylvia Brinton Perera, M.A. Sylvia Perera is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Sherman, Connecticut, and a teacher at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. She is the author of several books, including The Scapegoat Complex: Toward a Mythology of Shadow and Guilt; Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women; Dreams, A Portal to the Source: Clinical Guide for Therapists (with E.C. Whit- mont). Subjects of her published antcles include Celtic mythology and rituals in analysis. Ms. Perera has been a member of the Professional Division since February of 1989. The following “reflections” offer insights into the role of Hemi-Sync within the client-therapist relationship. I used the 201B Hemi-Sync Synthesizer in sessions with five patients during a month-long “research” period to try to estimate what effects the use of Hemi-Sync might have. I prepared the clients differently for the use of a mechanical adjunct to the usual therapy, and I noted individual results. In all cases, however, there was a marked change in my feel- ing relaxed, alert, and centered, which must have had an im- pact on the therapeutic field. There was also increased client ability to perceive and to verbalize what I am now calling “derivative messages of balance.” I have italicized some of these below. These derivative messages of balance were par- ticularly noteworthy in two borderline clients. The tendency to split perceptions and emotions into mutually exclusive cither-or states is part of the borderline diagnostic picture. But the same effect occurred with a manic-depressive female client and a male with severe compulsive and intellectualiz- ing defenses. One borderline woman with a history of self-mutilation and psychotic ideation came into the session in panic, feeling paranoid that a “man had been watching” her on the train. I was playing surf with Beta, Delta, Theta at a level just below traffic noise, so it was not really audible. She had been pre- viously informed that I at some point would try surf and other sounds in the room. She gave no indication that she heard the tape. I had been silent except for a brief question to elicit the objective facts about her experience on the train. She began to relax after twenty minutes of whimpering like a fearful infant that alternated with hypervigilant arousal and urges to hurt herself again. She then said, “I can begin to relax into my body. I can begin to feel safe .. . Oh, I can see something double. Feeling safe and being watched and hated can be together. That’s weird. That never happened before.” In a later session with the same Hemi-Sync setting she talked about “feeling real in a space we share—not alone in terror. You are there—here, too. I can be with you together.” A manic-depressive, hysteroid woman in the first session during which I used Hemi-Sync remembered a dream of “standing between two men, so I am not afraid.” She then spoke more coherently than usual, with less manic anxiety. She eventually, in the same session, provided a derivative message of balance quite explicitly by talking about “balan- ces [she could feel] between light and dark parts of [her] body, above and below.” At another session she reported that she could get “an overview [of her sense] of shame.” With the intellectualizing male client I tried the Delta, Theta setting to attempt to outflank his normal conceptualiz- ing persona. We both nearly went to sleep. I switched to add Beta, and the profound inertial pull continued. During six sessions of this state, we were mutually able to experience and acknowledge the power of nearly autistic defenses under his previous glib, left-brain talk. Exploring these deeper de s led into memories of the abuses that had walled off his vivid emotional life in carly childhood. About three months later I tried the Beta, Delta, Theta setting and he responded immediately by talking about “balancing concep- tual and emotional sides” of himself. To a severely phobic client, I urged the use of the Deep 10 Relaxation tape I lent him. After using it a few times with what he reported were positive results, he lost the tape. This provided analytic material to begin to analyze the grip—and secondary gains—of the phobic responses. Another client refused to use a tape at home, feeling I was shoving her off with a surrogate caretaker, as her mother had done by leav- ing her with maids. But she has responded well to the syn- thesizer in sessions. Hemi-Sync seems to help her to process her dependency cravings more realistically. I used Beta, --- PAGE 3 (OCR) --- Spring 1990 Delta, Theta with her, but sometimes started the session with Theta, Delta when she was manic, and switched to Theta, Beta when she is what she calls “awash and murky.” These are anecdotal data. It is impossible for me to do anything more hardline experimental with living clients in an intentionally therapeutic field—even though therapy by its very nature is somewhat experimental and improvisational. For example, I cannot tell how much of the effects were due to the Hemi-Sync sounds on the clients or, as I indicated, how much they helped me to stay centered and objective as a research observer and thus affected the mutual field. In cither case, I do think there was a benefit. And with the par- ticular borderline woman I mentioned, I attribute her slow but radical shift to that month of sustained use of the syn- thesizer. I chose to use it after three years of work with her. Why that moment felt “right” and why and when I choose to use Hemi-Sync with which clients is something about which I am still musing. It may be that there is a need to explore fully the nonbalanced states until I have an intuition that a synthesizing stage is appropriate. Since that month of research, I have been using the syn- thesizer quite intuitively. It is very hard to know what exactly is going on in such a complex, multidimensional field as psychotherapy, especially as the observer here is part of the field. EPSTEIN-BARR AND POST-VIRAL FATIGUE SYNDROME SYMPTOMS RELIEVED WITH HEMI-SYNC by Jill Russell, L.C.S.P., and Ronald Russell, M.A. Jilt is @ remedial therapist in private practice in Cambridge, England. Ronald Russell is a lecturer and author. The Russells offer courses using Hemi-Sync exten- sively, through their Cambridge center in addition to serv- ing private clients. The Russells have been associated with the Professional Division since 1987 [ed.: also see BREAKTHROUGH, Volume VII, No. 4, “Hemi-Sync Workshop Development and Presentation”. This account of two clients’ management of Epstein-Barr and Post- Viral Fatigue Syndrome symptoms represents the first writ- ten reporting on the use of Hemi-Sync with these diag- noses. TT’ female clients came to sce us, quite independently, early in 1989. One client, 26, worked as a finance adviser; the other, 21, is an art student. Following different illnesses, both had been unable to work for several months and one was forced to postpone the final year of her degree course. Also, both had been recently diagnosed as suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME; known also as Epstein-Barr Syndrome) although the term “post-viral fatigue syndrome” had also been used by their doctors. On the first visit, both clients seemed debilitated; they complained of tiredness, muscle fatigue after exercise of any sort, inability to concentrate, and general depression, all clas- sic symptoms of ME. Despite the depression, they had refused tranquilizing or antidepressant drugs. They were clearly very unhappy, had lost their confidence, and saw little prospect of recovery. We felt that the HUMAN PLUS series, then only recently launched, might help them to handle the symptoms of their illness and to direct the body’s own healing powers. After two individual sessions, we arranged to see them together. They soon became close friends, giving each other valuable support. We began by offering the H-PLUS tapes Prep and Relax. Their comments were: “This is the most relaxed I’ve felt for years. Unlike drugs it can only do me good.” Next we intro- duced Reset, Restorative Sleep, De-Tox: Body, Immunizing, Let Go, and Tune-Up. We suggested that they also choose their own tapes from our comprehensive tape library. We in-