by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

Day 19

October 4 (Saturday)

At breakfast at the Hilton Barbara ordered a couple of scrambled eggs—“but not too runny.” The waitress showed up with two plates of scrambled eggs and two orders of sausages that went with them, and placed them all before Barbara. Really? It would have taken Shaq himself to down all those sausages at one sitting.

by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

M y own theme at the conference was the common core of biofeedback and neurofeedback. This has actually been a recurring theme. This was a topic that I had covered back in 2006 at this same conference, which was also held in Northern California. At that time the talk was part of a multi-ring circus, and the only folks in attendance were neurofeedback people. The attempt to heal the breach between the two disciplines had not found its audience. By now, of course, the terrain is very different, at least at the conceptual level, if not at the level of practice. Most of the older biofeedback practitioners are sticking with their knitting, as far as I can tell. Change is being introduced with the new people entering the field, most of whom are no doubt being attracted by the greater glamour, and the bracing challenge, of brain training.

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by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

G eorge Fuller von Bozzay spoke about new developments in the area of wearables, apps, and other consumer-oriented devices. As it happens, he has himself been involved in one of these developments in the past. One of his neighbors is (or was) Ryan Gordon of Atari fame, and at a time when he was looking for projects he became intrigued with George Fuller’s idea for the development of video feedback for a GSR signal. Gordon insisted, however, that it be in the form of a game, and thus emerged the first such product, “Mind Drive.”

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by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

W hy is it that our nation has not made more progress in dealing with PTSD and TBI over all these years? Admittedly, the whole concept of PTSD only dates back to about 1980, which is rather astounding. But matters are even worse with regard to TBI. We’ve been living with automobile-involved head injuries in huge numbers for nearly a century; there are in addition the common occurrences of minor head injuries among children; and at the other end of the age range we confront all those falls among the elderly leading to minor traumatic brain injury. And yet there has been no real coming to grips with this problem until we confronted the conundrum of blast injury—injury without apparent direct impact on the brain—among our service members. One could well say that the field of medicine essentially ignored what is called ‘minor’ traumatic brain injury until the 21st century.

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by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

T he 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Biofeedback Society of California was an upbeat and rollicking affair. It got underway with a look back at the work of the Menninger group and the Life Sciences Institute by Patricia Norris. Ostensibly the key research objective there had been to study the dimensions of human consciousness, but in fact there was considerable engagement with the use of biofeedback for therapeutic purposes as well. The work with prisoners extended over nine years, and it reached a number of prisons. Support for this work was withdrawn at a time when the State of Kansas was facing a budgetary crisis that caused the cancellation of nearly all rehabilitation programs in the prisons, with the exception of some attention to violent sexual offenders.

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by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

Day 18

October 3 (Friday)

In the morning the three of us—Barbara, Sue, and I—headed for the Delhi airport to retrace our steps back to LA. We would be flying premium coach on our return, which is quite adequate for retaining one’s dignity since our flights were during the daytime. Here was our chance to take in the scenery along the way. The military guard at the door took an endless amount of time perusing our itinerary. Just what could be so interesting or informative about that? It appeared to be yet another exercise in self-importance. I have the power to keep you here as long as I want, he seemed to be implying. Meanwhile, you can behold my precisely trimmed beard and gaze upon my smartly tailored and meticulously ironed uniform. Not a wrinkle. The military guards did indeed show India in its best light.