You have just received your new biofeedback device with its instruction manual. You ask yourself: How can I personally use the equipment to encourage my self-growth? How can I help my patient to relax his spastic colon? How best can I use the equipment with my client who has chronic anxiety? How can I use this equipment in my research examining the correlation between location of muscle contraction and specific emotions? What is the best way to teach my students an understanding of the basis of the signal and the problem of artifacts? Should I have purchased this device or would I have been better off with another type of biofeedback equipment? How can I integrate the use of this device and other biofeedback equipment with such techniques of unstressing as progressive relaxation and meditation? Can I harm myself or others, either physically or emotionally, with the equipment? Where can I look for additional information regarding the use of biofeedback equipment? These questions and others have been raised over and over in our teaching of biofeedback to both students and professionals.
This manual has been structured so as to provide both background information and experiences that will allow the user to answer these questions. The manual is based on the premise that the only way to really learn (' 'know' ') about biofeedback is through self-experience.