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Beyond Biofeedback – Drs Elmer and Alyce Green

The first case we know of in which spastic colon was brought under control through biofeedback training involved an ingenious feedback procedure designed by psychiatrist James Howerton of Newport News, Virginia, in 1972. A physician who knew of Howerton's interest in feedback methods one day sent him a patient with spastic colon who had "worn out two internists and one psychiatrist" and was on a heavy drug regimen that was not bringing her problem under control.

In addition, the drugs had kept her stuporous for many years.

Howerton thought of attaching the microphone from an electronic stethoscope to his patient's abdomen and training her to detect low-frequency rumbling sounds in the bowels and turn them off. At first the microphone did not seem sensitive enough. The patient's husband suggested that during training sessions a soup bowl be taped over the microphone in order to enhance or amplify low-frequency rumbles.

That worked well, making the system sensitive enough so that, many minutes before the patient could feel any motion, she could hear the churning and bubbling. In other words, the microphone increased her awareness to a phenomenal extent. Howerton's instructions were simply to turn off the sounds. Within five months this woman was no longer taking drugs and was free of her problem.

Howerton said she had a changed personality, an understatement in light of her years of suffering from spastic colon and drugs.