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Green, Drs Elmer and Alyce – Experiments – Dr Pat Norris and her dissertation on the use of guided imagery and biofeedback for change in self-image in prisoners
Identifier
027381
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Beyond Biofeedback – Drs Elmer and Alyce Green
Pat Norris has just completed her Ph.D. dissertation on the use of guided imagery and biofeedback for change in self-image in prisoners.
In describing the prisoners who were her research subjects, she says, I expected to find hardened men, exploitive and tough, who consciously had decided to get theirs the easy way, live off society, make it rich, and so on. Instead, I was finding fearful, angry, guilt-ridden, and impulsive people (mostly young) who perceived themselves as failures, who felt inadequate and had very low self-esteem, and who, most significantly, perceived themselves and were perceived by others in numerous studies as victims!
Victims of society, cultural deprivation, poor education and lack of opportunity, broken homes and alcoholic parents, abusive treatment and chaotic instability. . . . Victims of their own defenses, of their identifications, of their self-defeating and self-destructing behavior, of tension and anxiety and low frustration tolerance and poor impulse control. . . ." [Norris, 1976]