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Beyond Biofeedback – Drs Elmer and Alyce Green

Anxiety Tension States

The first and one of the most interesting reports on the use of EMG feedback was written by Haugen, Dixon, and Dickel, and was called A Therapy for Anxiety Tension Reduction (1963). An interesting thing about the three authors was that they were all psychiatrists who explained to their patients, suffering from fears and anxieties, that before their cases would be taken up it would be necessary to learn a series of exercises for muscle-tension control.

The patient was wired up so that muscle tension was displayed on an oscilloscope. The patient was then given a tranquilizer and allowed to see the remarkable decrease in muscle tension as the drug took effect.

The doctor asked, "How do you feel?" and patients generally said they felt wonderful and wished they always felt that way.

Then the doctor explained that the kind of muscle-tension reduction they saw on the oscilloscope, resulting from the use of a drug, could be learned, and that the level of relaxation shown on the oscilloscope could be achieved without drugs after they had practiced the exercises for a few weeks.

Each week the patient returned to the clinic and was wired up so that he could see on the oscilloscope how his muscle-tension program was progressing. After the patient learned how to relax at will, usually in about five weeks, the doctor would say something like "You have now learned the relaxation system and we are ready to take up your problem," the original psychiatric problem.

But about 90 percent of the patients replied that the problem didn't seem so overpowering now, that perhaps they had been merely too anxious, or the problem no longer existed or the problem “seems to be going away,” or ” I was just too tense, now I’m all right.”