The Use of Biofeedback in College Counseling

Abstract

The authors present a biofeedback training model and explore 4 specific biofeedback modalities—electromyography, electrodermal activity, thermal, and neurofeedback—that can be integrated into the clinical setting by college counselors. In addition, the authors provide information about how college counselors can become board certified in biofeedback and neurofeedback. Clinical implications and applications for college counselors are also discussed.

Exploring Personalized Vibrotactile and Thermal Patterns for Affect Regulation

“…On the one hand, a wealth of findings indicate that changes in skin temperature reflect changes in the autonomous nervous system with an increase in peripheral blood flow and therefore in hands' and fingers' temperature during relaxation, and decrease of their temperature during stress [21,66]. On the other hand, supported by everyday metaphors of cooling off, cool temperatures appear to offer a pleasant counterpart to the warmer body temperature experienced during stressful events [66].…”

“…As mentioned above, we suggest that they can be leveraged as rhythmic patterns designed for entrainment to slow bodily rhythm. Another way to harness thermal patterns is by drawing on the relationship between body temperature and stress: peripheral vasoconstriction leads to cool hands [21], and central vasodilation leads to a warm core or internal body temperatures [66,67]. Thermal biofeedback is a therapeutic intervention for affect regulation involving training control of bodily functions in order to increase peripheral blood flow leading to higher skin temperature or warmed hands [70].…”

“…Thermal biofeedback is a therapeutic intervention for affect regulation involving training control of bodily functions in order to increase peripheral blood flow leading to higher skin temperature or warmed hands [70]. Prior findings have also shown that thermal biofeedback is facilitated if the temperature around the body is warmer [21,104]. One can imagine thermal patterns of warm temperature that could support thermal biofeedback when integrated with its instructions.…”

Relationship work among young adult couples: Romantic, social, and physiological considerations

“…SCA, which represents sympathetic nervous activity, reflects the method used for our data collection as being exosomatic and conductance as opposed to endosomatic and resistance (for a full discussion, see Khazan, ). Consistent with recommendations from physiology experts (Fish, Russoniello, & Clemmons‐James, ; Khazan, ) for comparing tonic (i.e., baseline sympathetic arousal) and phasic (i.e., amount of change in sympathetic arousal with the inclusion of a stimulus) trends, an aggregated mean SCA score was calculated individually for the baseline, RW with partner, and RW with friend tasks for comparison purposes. Of note, SCA is responsive to movement, talking, being startled, and several other events.…”