The premise of biofeedback is simple – a device of some sort is used to help give information to the organism that it needs but has a hard time accessing through its own pathways. Born in the early 1970’s, biofeedback promised to change the way in which we managed health issues (Olson & Schwartz 1987). It was to be a new humanistic use of technology that paralleled the ancient yogic disciplines but created short cuts to interactions with the healing forces of the body and mind. Thirty years later, it remains in the shadows of medicine and has laboured hard to create and maintain a professional following. Conventionally, regardless of whether the process involves the measurement of skin resistance, temperature, brain waves, muscle tone, heart rate, etc., the assumption is that “biofeedback” means the use of the “conscious mind” to control “unconscious processes” (Fuller 1977).
Biofeedback – a New Form of Learning or Not

The 1960’s had ushered in a phase of turbulent social evolution that bordered at times on a cultural revolution. Mind altering drugs culture crossed with Eastern philosophies and the boundaries of “human potential” stretched far beyond the established horizons. Psychology went “pop” and the classical behaviourism that had commanded all of academia and imprinted itself upon a post-war modernism was suddenly being rejected in favour of a new form of learning based on the subtle multiplicities of “consciousness”.

Despite the fact that there was never any consensus on the nature of the “conscious” or “unconscious” mind (Hoffman 1997) and that the “learning” involved in biofeedback has never been explained beyond conjecture, the “learning” model of biofeedback won the day and to this time has remained the basic conceptual reference.
The Other Biofeedback

In Soviet-era Russia, there also existed efforts to extend the new technologies into an interaction with organisms. Certainly, new forms of learning and consciousness were considered excellent subjects for experimentation. The Russians have always considered the ranges of conscious experience to a proper field for scientific inquiry. This attitude extended to the point where subjects considered paranormal and even mystical were studied side by side with the conventional sciences. As a result, there was in Russia a very successful development and application of the “learning” model of biofeedback. There was however also an equally successful development in a form of biofeedback that did not require the mediation of the “conscious” mind. This “other” form of biofeedback was more comfortably seated in the “conditioning” principles of behaviourism and had no requirement for “volition” or “learning”. This “other” form of biofeedback can be labelled “reflex biofeedback” in contrast to “learning” biofeedback.
Reflex Biofeedback

The premise of “reflex biofeedback” is that it is possible for the organism to derive meaningful and purposeful information necessary for enhanced solution-oriented self-regulation processes without the mediation of any sort of conscious, mental processes. In “reflex biofeedback”, directing electro-energetic stimulations of the organism by way of reflexive pathways in the skin evokes informational responses. These informational responses are simultaneously monitored by the device and used to modify the new proceeding stimulation in a manner that is directly related to the last preceding response of the organism. In this way, a “real-time” biological “conversation” is established based on the constantly modulated circular looping of stimulation > evoked response > monitored response > modulated stimulation > new evoked response. The organism shows impressive positive changes that reflect improved solution-oriented behaviours in “unconscious” physiological functions and processes. Considering the popular definition of “learning” style biofeedback as the “conscious mind” acting on “unconscious processes” it is reasonable to define “reflex” biofeedback as the “unconscious mind/body” acting on “unconscious processes”.

The continued progress in computer based hardware technologies, software designs and solid-state electronics has created the full capacity in devices to interact with the activities of a living organism at “real-time” biological speeds. The rates of sensory perception and cognitive determination are stubbornly slow compared to the blurring speeds of microprocessors and biological reactions. “Reflex biofeedback” centres on these super-speed reaction times and acts to co-ordinate responses that could never be tracked and catalogued by the everyday conscious mind.