Abstracts from the 2000 Futurehealth Meetings

Optimal Functioning Central

Is There a Self in Self-regulation?

Al Collins, Ph.D.

Psychology, biofeedback, and specifically neurofeedback are concerned with increasing and enhancing self control and self regulation. A number of disputed issues in neurofeedback turn on the question of how this "self" is to be understood. For instance, the question of speed. Does it matter how fast feedback is beyond the limit required for conscious recognition of the feedback signal's meaning? Implicit here may be the notion that an inner controlling self must register the significance of the feedback in order to learn from it. Neurologically, this might translate into the idea that the visual or auditory feedback signal, along with information about somatosensory cortical activity (if this is the area where the electrodes are placed), must reach the prefrontal cortex to be associated, interpreted, and then acted on via a return message to the somatosensory cortex to do more or less of what it was just doing. The assumption might be that an executive self lives in the prefrontal cortex and that self regulation means regulation by this executive.

Most neurofeedback theories seem to follow something like the above scenario. But not all, and in fact many other possibilities would seem to exist. What if it is the somatosensory cortex where feedback about its state (along with visual/auditory signals) is processed? Or could it be the visual cortex, which is constantly monitoring the just-past state of the somatosensory areas along with its own current state? This might imply that faster feedback could be useful. The ROSHI, Margaret Ayres, and other approaches seem to believe something like this is going on in neurofeedback. But what kind of "self" can we imagine in the visual association cortex? Who is doing the self controlling then?

Going further, what if it is the whole state of the brain that is the "self" in self regulation? In this case, even greater delays might be desirable, in order for this self to catch up with its various states, coherences and discontinuities, etc., before processing the rewarding or inhibitory signal.

Speed is only an example. More generally, I will suggest that the kind of "self" involved in self control influences how brain function and neurofeedback is understood and what protocols are thought to be effective. I will briefly survey some Western and Eastern psychological ideas on the self to guide the analysis.

Goals: To increase awareness that our understanding of what the "self" is influences our theories and practice of neurofeedback and to illustrate this with a few examples.

WS2 Buddhism, the Yogic Self, and Neurofeedback

Al Collins, Ph.D.

Neurofeedback, like all biofeedback, is a technology of self regulation. The word "self" in this definition is crucial in understanding what neurofeedback is. The kind of self that is understood to be doing the regulating (or being regulated) differs from one theory of neurofeedback to another. I will propose a taxonomy of neurofeedback theories based on how they understand the self and its role in the process. Because the deepest and most accurate analysis of the self has been done in the Indian and Chinese psychologies of bondage and self realization, I will use these ideas as a basic grid or framework for understanding the self's place in neurofeedback. Western psychological theories of the self will also be briefly reviewed, including Bandura's self efficacy theory, Rogers' and Gendlin's anti-self theories, Jung's distinction between ego and self, and Kohut's biploar self theory. Finally, I will apply Western and Eastern self ideas to the controversy over whether the brain, and therefore neurofeedback, is "linear" or "chaotic."

There are at least three types of self in neurofeedback theories:

1. Self as ego (gaining self efficacy or self control)

2. Self as witness (learning to act while not claiming the "fruits" of action)

3. Self as no-self (reorganization outside self awareness)

In yogic and Buddhist terms, these correspond to the Sanskrit words ahamkara, Purusa, and Buddha. We will discuss these concepts and apply them. At this point I believe that most neurofeedback based on QEEG, decreasing theta/beta ratios, and frontal lobe mastery falls into the self as ego category. Val Brown's and Len Ochs' theories, and perhaps ROSHI, seem to fall into the self as no-self group. Jeff Carmen's HEG, possibly ROSHI, and Anna Wise's Mind Mirror seem to belong in the self as witness category. I will discuss the role of the frontal lobes (especially left prefrontal) as the locus of the self (ego, possibly witness) and contrast this with the "global synchrony" no-self ideas that are not interested in localization and in fact implicitly subordinate the self to a wider organization. It is the no-self perspective that most naturally aligns itself with chaos theory and nonlinearity of the nervous system and neurotherapy.

Goals: To clarify what "self regulation" means in neurofeedback (and biofeedback generally) and to make explicit the implications that different understandings of "self" have for theories and practice of neurofeedback.

Love is a Way of Paying Attention

Les Fehmi and Susan Shor

A stockbroker, viewing his stock picks and talking to his clients in paying attention. A musician playing jazz is paying attention. An athlete who is immersed in his sport is paying attention. Someone who experiences anger or sadness is paying attention.

All of these forms of attention are important in our everyday lives. Love seems to most of us to be one of the more fleeting states of mind. Is it because we don’t bring the appropriate forms of attention to support the experience of love?

Objectives:

-discuss various forms of attention according to a quadrant model

-to illustrate the appropriateness of the various forms of attention in each of the quadrants for various human activities

-to recommend an inclusive form of attention that engenders compassion and love.

WS4 Managing Self, Managing awareness ; realizing your true nature through Attention Training.

Les Fehmi

One can spend a life searching for one’s true nature. One can miss altogether the nature of the searcher. Of all the variables associated with the searcher, the way he attends-- the attention he brings to the search --is most critical. If he goes chasing his true nature with a narrow focused atention, he’ll never get to realize other forms of attention, which is the object of the search. The object of the search is to realize his self. but Self is a composite of a multiplicity of forms of attention.

The participant will be exposed to various parameters of attention and will be guided through experiential exercises which enable participants to actually experience forms of attention discussed in the didactic part of the lecture. Attentional flexibility and its applications to personal and clinical settings will be discussed.

Objectives:

-didactic and experiential understanding and realization of various forms of attention according to a quadrant model

-to illustrate the relationship of the various forms of attention in the formation and search for self.

-learn practical exercises which can be used or taught to clients for daily use in practicing attentional flexibility

Transformations of Consciousness: Spiritual Milestones

Rhonda Greenberg

This presentation will address how to expand dimensions of consciousness and facilitate spiritual growth in everyday psychotherapy. Learn how to effectively support, explore, and effectively use the spiritual transformative techniques and recognize the phases of transformational change. Inner transformation requires one to feel keenly and have a sheer experience of the aspects of self that we hold back and then, begin to discover the truths about ourselves. The integration of the dimensions of the soul into our healing work helps individuals to emerge from the dark nights with a inner knowledge that deepens and enriches ones' life. Release of emotional distress and all kinds of psychological problems can be obtained through traditional psychotherapies and the new energy psychotherapies.

Learn how to employ these techniques in the service of growth, healing and optimal wellness.

Objectives:

1. Understand the major theoretical paradigms that describe the developmental milestones of spiritual and transformational growth.

2. Learn how psychotherapy can support spiritual emergence in order to help the client achieve optimal inner healing and performance goals.

3. Introduction to the new energy meridien-based therapies and their integration of these techniques with the more classic psychotherapies.

Optimal Functioning & QEEG 30 minutes

Jay Gunkelman

The concept of optimal functioning has been one which has had many protocols designed to create such a state. These protocols have included many one-size-fits-all fixed state protocols, such as the frontal lobe generalized suppression or the varieties of alpha based protocols. There are others which are a universally applied protocols with multiple steps, from the two chanell work of Anna Wise, to the Chaos theory expounding works of Val Brown.

I will attempt to show the use of the qEEG to customize the NF intervention to the individuals own EEG profile to optimize the effect desired by the client, rather than accepting these more commonly expounded neurofeedback approaches to optimal functioning. The arbitrary separation between clinical treatment and optimal functioning will be discussed. Individual cases will be reviewed.

This is not a "weekend wonder" (one seminar gets you into a practice) approach, but requires a depth understanding of the brain's physiological systems and their EEG/qEEG signatures. The seductive nature of the less intellectually taxing interventions will become obvious. A serious long term committment to the field is required to attain independent mastry of the techniques, but with the modern information technologies these advanced interventions do not have to be done independently.

Soma Sound: The Voice of Memory

Jane Gutman

An introduction to the "memory body," both as the embodiment of cellular

history and the expression of your mental/physical/emotional and spiritual

experience.

Meet an ancient practice that will re-align the collection of your bodies,

i.e. mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and memory bodies. This process

addresses the cellular memory system. It is a system that allows you to

access the library of memories that has accumulated from the moment of

conception to the present. Through a combination of energy balancing, breath

and "sounding" you will begin the process of gently releasing the material

that has collected in the cells and tissues of your system. As you begin to

address this collection you will allow the accumulated material to clear and

release.

The Soma Soundâ„¢ experience can be a catalyst for release, for clarity, for

re-shaping the cellular structure. As this structure is re-formed, at the

level of the conscious experience, we are able to establish new thought form,

new insight, new perception to the conditions that have formed the blueprint

for our life experiences.

Sounding is profound in its form and in its energetic structure. Know that

in practice and in principle, it will serve as a bridge to wholeness and to

holiness. Sit in the arms of its Light. Integrate the concept of memory as

a driving factor in the current status of our life and our health.

All healing includes the "surrendering" of old ways… Surrendering what is

stored in memory, surrendering what is held in the cells and tissues, and

releasing thoughts and behaviors that direct us away from the full expression

of perfect health and joy. Soma Soundâ„¢ is one system that assists the

mind/body/spirit as it journeys to wellness and wholeness.

An array of feelings and sensations are experienced as you "sound" out this

material: Joy, sorrow, fatigue, clarity, heaviness, lightness, despair,

inner strength are among the feelings and sensations others have reported as

they express the inner collection of grief and distress. Material has

collected throughout your life and so it is usual to experience a sense of

exhaustion and exhilaration. Both are frequently reported

Your system will actually prioritize material and will "select" the most

appropriate material to release. The body/mind/spirit, in its innate wisdom

will release only that which is within the range of your comfort and safety.

Know that as you move into the core of your pain, cleansing and healing will

come forth and your holy and whole self will emerge. This will come

incrementally for some and transformationally for others.

The influence of memory will reveal itself to both the scientific and healing

communities as we are directed to the resolution of lifelong wounds.

Jane Guttman © 2000

760 323-0307

GiftJGDC@aol.com

Jane Guttman

The Gift Wrapped in Sorrow

Soma Sound: The Voice of Memory

Channel for Athelia: The Unseen Healer

"For many, the future is blind without a sight of the past."

Judge Wade S. Weatherford, Jr.

The Unseen Healer: Listen for the Higher Voice

Jane Gutman

Explore the healing presence of spirit guides/teachers as profound models and directors to the physician within, your inner healer. Awaken to the guidance of these "unseen healers" and be propelled toward a higher vibratory energetic experience. Listen to/for the "higher voice," a transforming communication that will assist you in bridging the space between your mindbody experience and that of the energetic, spiritual expression; bringing a poignant integration of mind/body/spirit.

Jane Guttman, D.C. will share her personal introduction with Athelia, an eloquent, powerful, learned spirit master. She has joined Jane as an extraordinary voice in speaking to the wounded being and the powerful master that each one is. Athelia has come as a gifted, articulate, wise, tender, gracious healer to assist in our quests for healing and wholeness. Her guidance is remarkably aligned with our inner truth and outer expression.

Share in this stirring opportunity to explore the path to your spirit guide, to the higher vibration that can bring you to the door of mindful clarity and true transformation.

Accelerated Spiritual Growth Through The Advanced Biocybernaut Process

James Hardt

The Biocybernaut Training Process is a high tech intensive vision quest that evokes transformation of personality and accelerates spiritual growth.

Participants will learn the required technology and be introduced to the methods for the experiential application of this advanced brain energy training.

The means of achieiving spiritual growth are well known: quieting the mind, stilling the internal dialogues, and opening our hearts. The benefits of the ancient wisdom are made virbantly real and personal in your life when you actually quiet your mind and open your heart. But exhortation and meditation are both very slow routes to these attainments. We know that technoogy speeds things up, and now there is an optimized technology for spiritual growth that assists you in rapidly quieting your mind, stilling your internal dialogues, and opening your heart. This powerful technology and method offers many of the attainments of 20 to 40 years of meditation in a 7-day brain energy feedback intensive. Joy, peace, love, and exhilaration are the natural results of the Biocybernaut Training Process along with increased creativity, happiness, motivation, and possibily also significant increases in IQ.

Information about the brain energy patterns underlying halos, the perception of astral plane beings (e.g. angels), forgiveness, happiness and mind skills such as creativity, IQ, and ESP will be discussed. When the underlying brain energy patterns are known, training the associated mind skills becomes easy with Biocybernaut technology.

Workshop Objectives:

1. Participants will identify a causal relationship between changes in brain energy patterns and changes in dimensions of personality.

2. Participants will identify the relationships between effective forgiveness and non-attachment and how these contribute to opening the heart and quieting the mind.

3. Participants will describe the experiential research data linking

spiritual growth to learned changes in brain energy patterns.

4. Participants will distinguish between effective and ineffective feedback technologies.

5. Participants will describe the requirements of effective feedback

methodologies.

Sat. Talk

ADD: There is a Light at the End of the Tunnel

Thom Hartmann

In his six books on attention deficit disorder, best-selling author Thom Hartmann has characterized ADD as scanning or "Hunter" traits, which can present a problem for children and adults living in a world taken over by "Farmers." In this inspiring and informative presentation, Hartmann shares ADD Success stories with the audience, re-frames ADD in a way that is useful and therapeutic, and provides specific suggestions and strategies for success with ADD. Thom Hartmann gives adults and children with ADD an opportunity to recapture their self-esteem and take control of their lives.

Two hour workshop

Waking Up To Personal and Global Transformation

In this passionate yet thoroughly researched presentation, author Thom Hartmann proposes that the only lasting solution to the crisis we face in to relearn the lessons of out ancient ancestors--who lived sustainably for thousands of generations. When you touch this new yet older way of seeing the world and hearing the voice of all life, you will discover that you, personally, hold the power of personal and planetary transformation.

Fri. Talk:

Edge of God: The Psychology of Transformation

Thom will touch on how western thinking legends and myths have caused global problems and what we can do about it. Individual actions and changes in conciousness -- lessons we can learn from ancient cultures -- can save the world from impending ecological and cultural crises. Touching that place where the survival of humanity may be found is the focus of this workshop.

Find out about:

* Understanding responsibility for yourself and your actions: how to regain your personal power

* Rediscovering love in yourself, others, and the divine

* How to recreate community wherever you are

* Discover Self-Actualization is possible both individually and culturally

Bio

Thom Hartmann is an award-winning best-selling author, international lecturer, teacher, and psychotherapist. His books have been written about in Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal and numerous radio and TV shows including "All Things Considered." A former journalist and editor, he lives in Vermont with his wife, Louise. His most recent books are Healing ADD and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.

CV for Thom Hartmann

Thom Hartmann, a psychotherapist, is also an internationally known speaker on psychotherapy and communications, an author, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and the intersection of spiritual and cultural transformation.

Hartmann is the award-winning, best-selling author of nine books currently in print (and two more to be released in 1999). He is the former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, and has helped set up and support hospitals, famine relief programs, schools, and communities for orphaned or blind children on five continents. Rostered with the State of Vermont as a psychotherapist, he was the originator of the revolutionary "Hunter/Farmer Hypothesis" to understand the psychiatric condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). He also synthesized the Younger/Older Culture model for describing the underpinnings - and possiblesolutions - to the world's ecological and political crises. His most recent books (1998) are "Healing ADD," with a foreword by Richard Bandler, and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," with a foreword by

Joseph Chilton Pearce and afterword by Neale Donald Walsch.

Hartmanns books have been written about in Time and many other magazines, he has been on NPR and BBC radio and CNN television (among others), mentioned on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, and has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people on five continents over the past two decades. One of his books was selected for inclusion in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian for its "visionary use of information technology to produce positive social, economic and educational change in medicine." As a result of his book "The Prophet's Way," he was invited in August, 1998, for a personal audience with Pope John Paul II at the Pope's summer palace on Lake Gandolfo, and to participate in a workshop in September, 1999 with His

Holiness The Dalai Lama at the residence of The Dalai Lama in India. Recently the Premier of Canada's Northwest Territories, Don Morin, brought Hartmann in to conduct a workshop with Inuit and Dene people on education and cultural transformation which was so successful he then asked Hartmann to address the Legislative Assembly of the province.

A recurrent theme in Hartmann's work is that most true and lasting cultural change begins with personal change propagating through enough people to reach a critical mass. Thus, he urges us all to be conscious and open to the world, showing that doing all you can to save the planet and improve the human condition requires both personal spiritual connection and global intent. History demonstrates that the tiniest and most anonymous actions can have world-changing ramifications.

Hartmann holds several degrees in various aspects of complimentary medicine (1971-78), studied acupuncture in Beijing (1986), and is a licensed and certified NLP Practitioner (1994) and NLP Trainer (1996) with the Society of NLP. For this latter, he was trained by Leif Roland and Richard Bandler.

RECIPES FOR ENCHANTMENT, Beginning to Live a Life of Joy.

Barbara Holstein

In this two hour workshop participants will learn the core RECIPES for ENCHANTMENT. These recipes encourage the utilization of a positive action

combined with positive cognitions and /or

feelings. For example, working in a soup kitchen while at the same time feeling in a pleasant mood would be a very simple recipe. A discussion of these "recipes" will then lead into relevant components of THE ENCHANTED SELF: l. How to use memory to access the positive parts of yourself. 2. How to recognize what gives you pleasure and joy in your life. 3. How to begin to make necessary changes to permit positive actions to succeed.

Several mind/body exercises will help the participants begin to design unique recipes that fit them, based on personal interests, history, and recognition of pleasure.

Goals: Each participant will leave understanding the core components of THE

ENCHANTED SELF and well as what makes a workable ENCHANTED RECIPE.

Each person will leave with an individual ENCHANTED RECIPE based on his or her uniqueness to begin to implement.

Each person will be given follow-up materials and ways to converse with me for follow-up feedback and support.

THE ENCHANTED SELF, A Positive Therapy

Barbara Holstein

In this 30 minute presentation I will share THE ENCHANTED SELF paradigm

shift that takes the focus off of pathology in the treatment room and places it where it should be: on the client's strengths, positive aspects of her

past, talents, coping skills, interests and potential. This shift allows for more hope, optimism and the experience of joy, for both the client and the

therapist, while still encouraging effective psychotherapy.

Goals for this presentation are: 1. The attendee understands THE ENCHANTED

SELF paradigm shift. 2. The attendee leaves with some clear notions has to

how to begin to make that shift in the treatment room. 3. The attendee understands the importance of focusing on the postive aspects of a client rather than the pathology.

Positive Experience Work: imagery, recall, analysis , as a positive psychology coaching intervention.

Rob Kall

Positive experience training is a process of skill building based on a model which posits that positive experiences and good feelings are the basic building blocks of self esteem, positive attitude, the ability to face challenges, experience happiness and express good feelings and the capacity to cope with adversity and stress.

Some of the elements involved in building these skills include positive experience (PE) recall, analysis and imagery. By working with these, clients can build a permanent, accessible inventory of PEs which can be used:

- to balance cognitive distortion

-to analyze PE patterns

-for personalized imagery exercises

The presentation will include didactic and experiential components, including a guided PE recall exercise, followed by a detailed analysis of some PEs. A very brief overview of the anatomy of Positive experience will be described.

Objectives:

-understanding of Positive Experience Skill model

-ability to guide a client through a PE recall exercise

-know three ways to incorporate PE exercises in work with clients (diary keeping, personalized imagery, PE pattern analysis to identify underutilized PE activities)

Self regulation and enlightenment

Rob Kall

This introductory discussion will explore the variety of self regulatory approaches used by biofeedback practitioners to aid individuals on their path to enlightenment. Definitions and models of enlightenment will be discussed, and practical ways that practitioners working with clinical populations can include consideration of the path to enlightenment in their own practice with patients as well as with seekers of enlightenment will be discussed. A model will be presented which suggests that any client receiving biofeedback training is developing skills which can be used in ways which go beyond the need for symptom elimination.

The following issues will be discussed: Is it the practitioner’s responsibility to inform the client of these potentials? How can the practitioner present the self regulation and biofeedback skills being offered as tools which can be used throughout life, rather than Band-Aids for the presenting symptoms. How can the client be oriented, right from the initial intake, to perceive the learning process as one which will have lifelong impact?

objectives:

-describe a model which re-conceives intervention as empowering and lifelong skill building rather than symptom and pathology eliminating

-impart specific strategies for implementing the model

-impart an understanding of the philosophical issues involved.

Toward a Science of Consciousness"

Joe Kamiya

From the perspective of most contemporary biology and much of experimental psychology, human consciousness is a thorn in the side of scientific

progress. Common solutions are to regard consciousness and its cousins awareness, subjective experience and mind and their infamous "contents" like feelings, emotions, thoughts, hope, dreams, etc., in various dismissive ways. They are non-existent as a scientific problem, irrelevant

to an understanding of behavior, simply examples of muddled thinking, or devoid of meaning except as verbal reports. One researcher in the pharmacology of pain stoutly denies that it is our headaches that cause us to reach for the aspirin bottle.

What is proposed in opposition to this prevailing view is the acceptance of subjective experience as a biological attribute of awake humans, with the

possibility of being indexed by the convergence of measures at the behavioral, physiological or social levels of description. The critical role that biofeedback can play in advancing the science of this field will be discussed, first with examples from early studies of the discrimination of the subjective correlates of the EEG alpha rhythm, and then with biofeedback's use in an approach employing multidimensional psychophysics and multi channel psychophysiology.

Given time and energy to pursue an experimental program in subjective experiences of all sorts, the science of human life has hope of being adequate for addressing a key feature of what makes us human.

WS4: Toward a Science of Consciousness and Knowledge

Joe Kamiya

The science of human life will be grossly incomplete until human subjective experience, consciousness and knowledge are understood in a unified theoretical framework that encompasses both the physiological substrates of subjective experience as well as the social interaction network of which the person is a part. The task of developing such a unified theory is daunting; some say it is in principle impossible.

What I will try to do is help specify the kind of scientific problem we are confronting, point out likely strategies and tactics that would help provide improved ways to describe subjective experience, and suggest how the physiological data can help in ordering the subjective information. I believe that considering the evolutionary origins of human consciousness and knowledge will help provide perspective, and some speculations are offered. The topics to be covered are:

(1) The conceptual status of subjective experience in the world of objective reality.

(2) The role of convergent indicators in supporting inferences about subjective experience.

(3) The dethronement of verbal report as the sole indicator of subjective experience.

(4) The central role that certain kinds of biofeedback training can play as a basic science tool in the science of consciousness. Example: EEG alpha discrimination training.

(5) The tools needed for refining in a quantitative way the dimensions of human subjective experience: multidimensional psychophysics aligned with multidimensional psychophysiology.

(6) The social aspect of human consciousness and methods for gaining new insights into this central feature of the scientific problem.

(7) The question of whether all processes of consciousness, including the most profound spiritual experiences, can be understood as having evolved from more primitive forms of life. How spiritual experiences have

influenced social interaction and organization, particularly in the

education of the young.

(8) Speculations about evolution and awareness and knowledge.

The potential for all knowledge, including mathematical and scientific (but also including self-awareness and the direct perception of the subjective states of others) appears to have evolved since the Big Bang from the interactions of the components of an orderly material world and later social world. Retention of that orderliness in the central nervous system through evolutionary processes has at the human level produced a payoff in survival rates via the capacity for reflection and introspection. Special attention will be directed to the proposition that mathematical knowledge is discovered by both observation of the external world and introspection of relevant regularities built into brain processes in the course of evolution. On this view mathematical discovery is a process of recognition of patterns of orderliness built into brain, with the triggering of recognition being facilitated by education. The delight experienced from "elegant solutions" may have much more ancient origins than we have suspected.

(9) The application of the same line of thought to science, both objective and personal. Research is needed to expand our information on how far evolution has endowed us with latent knowledge of the physical world, knowledge waiting to be triggered by the experiments we conduct. The fact that our bodies conduct the equivalent of differential equations when we learn to catch a ball may help explain how we have developed laws of motion. We have universal capacities for recognizing emotion. What else in social perception and cognition has genetics given us? The conditions

favoring personal knowledge development are another area for study.

Meditation may be fruitfully considered along these lines, with the aid of those who have done it for a substantial part of their lives.

(10) How advances in biofeedback technology of the future may help us come closer to understanding the knowledge and awareness processes and the social matrix in which they reside. Just as the source of the Nile was found, why not the source of consciousness and knowledge? We may need to expand our view of the natural selection process to proceed further. If only we could find a way to live long enough to see how credible these speculations are!

Inner Key to Optimal Performance

Liana Mattulich

Inner Key has carefully selected the best from the precision tools of modern science and has distilled them with the greatest truths of ancient wisdom in a unique blend of interactive and transformative power. This workshop offers the participant a rare opportunity to learn a method of extraordinarily skillful and compassionate healing/ transformation for oneself and for one’s clients. Our overall purpose at Inner Key is to allow individuals to create new paradigms of vital transformation, providing the best potential for developing optimal states of being.

The training of Inner Key combines eastern techniques with cutting-edge biofeedback technology. This integration allows individuals to actualize their awareness to improve quality of life.

The Inner Key system consists of:

balancing the autonomic system bilaterally at the meridian points as monitored with biofeedback. Its purpose is to store the right energy in preparation for transformation.

with the right intention, harmonizing the breath and the heart rate rhythms and the phi ratio (golden proportion) in frontal EEG sites.

considering EEG frequencies individually to find what is unique to each person.

attaining phi ratio (golden proportion) between frequencies at EEG cranial meridian points (similar to 10-20 International System sites, but individualized).

utilizing audio-visual aids to give the individual scientific information for clear understanding of what he/she is working toward.

using analogies and metaphors to access and process subconscious materials and occupy the "monkey mind." Also, to open Inner Keys of optimal functioning.

boosting the immune system by using tactile vibration in special mathematical sequences.

ancient symbolic language, for integrating a person as a multisensory dimensional being into the optimal toroidal energy field pattern.

implementing a superior capacity for awareness and flexible action in daily life by using specific movements that link the quality of energies with the right timing.

The workshop will offer experiential and didactic material that can be introduced in your daily professional practice and personal life. Theory, criterion in the stages of training, exercises, proper hookup sites and case examples are included.

We will see Inner Key as a tool to empower self, clients and community with a greater sense of connection and clarity of purpose.

We will consider Inner Keys for vital transformation as our human right to choose a healthy, efficient, flexible and happy quality of life in communion with the larger reality (the Web of Life).

Biography: Dr. Liana Mattulich.

From 1963, practiced as a physician providing medical care and prevention in Argentina. Founder and Director of Biofeedback Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1980. Worked as a biofeedback therapist in Florida and California, as well as Family Service specialist in San Francisco, California 1987 to 1995.

Founder of the Latin American Biofeedback Association (LABA), a chapter of the Association for the Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) in 1995. Currently she represents the Latin chapter of AAPB.

Dr. Mattulich has studied extensively in advanced brainwave biofeedback, including work with the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. For over 25 years she has practiced Zen and Tibetan meditations, and exercises from native South American cultures and the Sufis.

She was Director of Neurotherapy and Biofeedback Services for two years at the Center for Inner Change in Denver, Colorado. In 1998 she was elected president of the Colorado AAPB, and has organized several conferences and educational workshops. She was re-elected for the 1999-2000 term.

Since 1998, she has been in private practice with national and international clients with the Inner Key program in Colorado.

She is a Fellow in BCIAC and was Grand Parented in EEG.

Dr. Mattulich has published a number of articles in professional magazines and newspapers in Argentina and Brazil. She has conducted seminars and lectures in schools, colleges and community centers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, and has lectured at Miami Dade Community College in Miami, Florida; San Francisco State University, California; Colorado Association for the Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, Colorado; and the 1998-1999 seminar series "Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Sciences," Denver, Colorado.

Empowering the Brain

Sue Othmer

SOthmer@aol.com

Neurofeedback is presented as a means of empowering the brain to function optimally. Optimum performance training is often thought of as training high achievers, but it also applies to optimizing the performance of underachievers and those with diagnosed problems. Neurofeedback training can improve the ease of performance and allow all of us to achieve at a level that more closely matches our ability and expectations.

Outline:

Empowering the Brain

Sue Othmer

EEG Spectrum Institute

Encino, California

All Neurofeedback Training is Optimum Performance Training

Neurofeedback empowers the brain to function optimally

What is Optimum Performance?

Ease of Function

Achievement Matches Expectation

Factors Affecting Optimum Performance

Ability

Skill

Execution

Neurofeedback as Optimum Performance Training

Self-regulation of Attention, Mood, and Physical Tension

Sleep Regulation

Endurance and Stress Tolerance

Motivation and Satisfaction

Optimum Performance as Diagnosis

Who is the Peak Performer?

Reason to Seek Training

Are we defined by our disabilities?

Assessment for Optimum Performance

"Oh by the way, I ‘m bipolar."

Testing - Measuring Performance

Training for Optimum Performance

Training for Physiological Self-regulation

Training to Resolve Psychological Blocks and Release Bad Habits

Benefits of Neurofeedback Training

Ease of Performance

Enjoyment of Process

Stress Tolerance

Success - Reaching one’s Potential

"It’s easier to be me."

Neurofeedback as Brain Exercise

If you have a physical disability, you do physical therapy.

If you are physically well, you do physical fitness training.

Neurofeedback as Brain Exercise

If you are identified as an underachiever because you have a diagnosed disability, you do neurofeedback training to remediate your disability.

If you are identified as a high achiever, you do neurofeedback training to improve your already superior performance.

All Neurofeedback Training is Optimum Performance Training

WS2 Writing in Flow -

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D.:

Many writers claim their best work emerges from a state of flow. Flow for writers is an altered state of consciousness in which the writer feels merged with the writing, self- and audience-awareness are forgotten, time becomes irrelevant, and the writer feels challenged sufficiently, though not too much, so that there is a sense of control (based on the original flow theory of M. Csikszentmihalyi). Seeking to discover how creative writers, in particular, make and experience this shift from ordinary reality to the altered reality of a flow state, I interviewed a convenience sample of 76 regularly writing and publishing novelists and poets. Subjects were asked what leads up to their becoming fully absorbed in writing, including writing rituals, thought processes, audience awareness, whether they enter flow more than once in a writing session, and other probe questions. It was determined that five key factors are involved in the crossover into flow during creative writing. Two conditions are predisposing: personality factors (emotional resilience, openness to experience, absorption as a trait, looseness of boundaries in thinking), and motivational factors (intrinsic motivation to write that is strong enough to overcome anxiety and fear, or a combination of motivators). Three conditions are concurrent: loosening up, focusing in, and balancing among the opposites of willing/not willing, thinking/not thinking, and audience awareness/unawareness. Writers use a variety of idiosyncratic routines and techniques to fulfill these conditions. They reframe writer's block and other periods of non-writing and non-flow as necessary components of the creative process. Subjects described their experience of shifting into flow in terms of personally relevant metaphors. Writers learn to optimize flow entry over time with increased knowledge and practice. In the course of this two-hour workshop, based on this research and on my bestselling book WRITING IN FLOW: Keys to Enhanced Creativity (Writer's Digest Books, 1999), participants will learn details of useful writing routines, practical and reflective ways to think about their own writing process, and will experience and discuss various exercises, recommended by highly successful writers, designed to propel them into flow. for more information about the book and the presenter's background, see http://www.bunnyape.com.

CREATING IN FLOW -

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D.:

Creators from numerous domains, from scientists and performers to poets and painters, experience a shift into a altered state of flow during one or more points in their creative process. This talk is based on the psychology of optimal experience first studied empirically by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues, and further explored by myself via in-depth interviewing of writers. Flow appears to be a universal experience, yet it is unpredictable and is itself no guarantee of an outstanding product. Nevertheless, creating in flow is itself highly intrinsically motivating, and thus predisposes those who know how to enter it to do so often, thereby increasing the odds of producing steadily. Creators also frequently claim that their flow sessions are among their favorite experiences, highly satisfying regardless of the eventual decision as to the quality of the results of any one session. The following conditions are required for flow to occur during a creative endeavor: focus is intense, consciousness is altered so that time stops or becomes irrelevant, the creator feels himself or herself merging with the activity and perhaps feels part of something even larger ("cosmic"), self-awareness and awareness of one's surroundings are extremely diminished, and the creator has a sense of control due to the challenge of the activity matching the creator's skills in an appropriate balance. A flow activity becomes self-rewarding. This talk will mention a variety of other factors that enter into the flow equation: the necessity for emotional resilience, the ability to loosen up and focus in on a particular activity, and the need to learn how to balance a variety of paradoxical factors, including willing/not willing, thinking/not thinking, and audience awareness/unawareness. The presenter will illustrate each aspect of flow with relevant quotes from eminent creators in a variety of domains. For more on the presenter and her book WRITING IN FLOW, see her Internet site: http://www.bunnyape.com

Workshop:

Brain and Conscious Experience: Where are We? Adventures in Brain Science: The First 50 Years

Karl Pribram

Highlights of discoveries in my laboratory and the theories that have emerged from them will be presented for active discussion.

The following points will be raised for discussion: 1. All knowledge originates from conscious experience. So why do some philosophers insist

that only selective aspects of conscious experience pose a "hard problem?"

2. At least three levels of consciousness can be made out, and to some extent brain processes have been determined for each. The evidence for these processing levels will be discussed.

What I Learned from the Brainwave Trainers -- The Coming Revolution of the Central Nervous System."

Jim Robbins

The human nervous system is the most complex and exquisite piece of "equipment" on the planet, yet we are functional illiterates when it comes to understanding, maintaining and enhancing its performance. We know more about our cars and computers. I will talk about how that is about to change for the following reasons: 1. The growing body of experience with neurofeedback. 2.Research projects on how the brain is affected by emotion at places such as the Healthemotions Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin. 3. The new generation of technology, including functional MRIs, other subcortical imaging systems and advances in neurofeedback training. 4.

A growing awareness among the press and those in power that such an approach is a panacea of sorts for many of the most intractable problems in our society. All of these things will create a huge shift in the next three to five years: a de facto Manhattan Project of the Central Nervous System.

BIO: Jim Robbins is a free-lance writer in Helena, Montana and a frequent contributor to the New York Times. He has written about neurofeedback for

the New York Times Science Section, Parade and Psychology Today and is the author of "A Symphony in the Brain: The Evolution of the New Brainwave Biofeedback" to be released by The Atlantic Monthly Press in May.

Consciousness Beyond the Brain; The Living Energy Universe

Keynote: Gary E. R. Schwartz

Dept. of Psychology, The University of Arizona

Box 210068 Tucson, AZ 85721-0068

Phone (520) 6215497 Fax (520) 621-9306

Email GSCHWART@u.arizona.edu

What happens to our models of brain and consciousness when we consider the integration of systems theory with the concepts of energy and information? Predictions of the nature of reality, from physics and chemistry to biology, psychology, medicine and ecology, take on new and dramatic implications. In the new book THE LIVING ENERGY UNIVERSE (Schwartz and Russek, 1999, Hampton Roads Press), we illustrate how the theory leads to the conclusion that everything in the universe, including light itself, is eternal, alive, and evolving. The theory not only predicts that all dynamical systems "remember," but that the "info-energy" systems that exist inside "material" systems exist and have a "life of their own" that continues even after physical deconstructions (e.g. physical death.) New research from our laboratory, featured on the October HBO documentary LIFE AFTERLIFE, examines the plausibility of survival of consciousness after death. It includes the recordings of 19 channels of EEG and ECG's from both the "mediums" and the "sitters." A video segment of raw footage demonstrating the phenomenon will be shown. Implications for neurotherapy and "spirit assisted medicine" will be considered.

Objectives:

1. To explain how systems theory can be integrated with the concepts of energy and information.

2. To illustrate how the prediction is reached that everything in the universe is eternal, alive, and evolving.

3. To show how research on systemic memory and consiousness beyond the brain can be researched.

Workshop Human Energy Systems Research: The Living Energy Laboratory

Gary E. R. Schwartz, Ph.D.

This workshop will present the latest research from our laboratory on (1) electrostatic body movements and the human antenna / receiver effect, (2) heart focused attention and heart-brain synchrony, (3) gamma radiation absorption and emission as measures of loving energy and healing, and (4) effects of consciousness and Qi Gong on random event generators and mechanical devices. Implications for the clinical practice of energy medicine and neurotherapy will be discussed.

Objectives:

1. Describe the measurement of electrostatic body motion and its relationship to healing touch.

2. Describe the measurement of energy cardiology and its relationship to attention.

3. Describe the measurement of gamma ray spectrometry and its relationship to loving energy.

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Workshop: Researching Life After Death: The Last Frontier

Gary E. R. Schwartz, Ph.D. and Linda G. S. Russek, Ph.D

This workshop reviews the latest research from our laboratory on the p