Past treatment recommendations have cautioned practitioners to avoid biofeedback or psychophysiological treatment for people who have neurological damage including brain injuries. However, with appropriate assessment of what is happening in a particular instance, a variety of physical disabilities can be successfully be treated. In many cases, a different type of intervention is needed for the patient who has neurological injury as compared to the psychologically traumatized patient. Behavioral interventions include behavioral medicine, health psychology, and behavioral management interventions. This type of biofeedback treatment represents new areas of interventions for brain and peripheral nerve injured patients. Stress management is also involved in the quality of health.

Many of these patients present with chronic illness. Often patients have seen other professionals but have not received adequate help. They seek improved health, increased control of their lives, and additional coping styles with self-efficacy. Case study data on multiple modalities of biofeedback for women are presented.

Diagnostic categories include:

1. stroke sequelae
2. Tourette's syndrome with neck, facial, and body tics
3. post-operative breast cancer
4. poor circulation in Raynaud's syndrome
5. migraine headaches from motor vehicle accident sequelae
6. bowel incontinence from multiple surgeries
7. bowel retention from cerebral palsy

1. decreased frequency of the presenting symptoms
2. increased social interactions in the post treatment phases of life with concomitant
3. reduction in social isolation
4. resumption of at least three activities that each patient had previously done before
5. her physical disabilities become prominent
6. decreased emotional distress from depression and/or anxiety
7. muscle activation exercises in addition to learning relaxation
8. distracting herself from tic episodes with a variety of stimuli including certain musical tones

Feminist approaches to diagnosis and treatment have been limited in areas considered to be "hard science" such as biofeedback, physiology, health psychology, behavioral medicine, and neuropsychology. As a result, women's physical concerns, outside of a limited set of reproductive problems, are overlooked and misdiagnosed as "hysteria" and "psychosomatic" disorders. This presentation offers biofeedback interventions for behavior change, integrated with hypnosis, psychotherapy, and/or comprehensive rehabilitation programs.

Primary goals:

1. raise the awareness of medical, allied health, and psychosocial personnel that brain injury is a common denominator for women who have chronic pain, substance abuse problems, and other physical disorders. The women are seeking professional help to stabilize their lives and to improving their quality of life. Referrals to appropriate health consultants are recommended.
2. report clinical outcome data that illustrates biofeedback therapy as a successful behavioral management treatment. A broad variety of problems are examined.

1. appropriately intervening with biofeedback therapy based on neuropsychological implications of brain injury
2. serving poor, older, and middle aged women
3. identifying and supporting psychosocial adjustment strategies and behaviors
4. ensuring that biofeedback, physiology, health psychology, behavioral medicine, and neuropsychology are integrated into feminist psychology curriculum, training, practice, and research

This paper was presented at the May 1994 convention Psychosocial and Behavioral Factors in Women's Health: Creating an Agenda for the 21st Century in Washington, DC. 

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Last Updated: 12/26/00