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M.I.A.S. BULLETIN
A COMMUNICATION FROM THE MONROE INSTITUTE OF APPLIED SCIENCES
The following is a portion of a
report from one Institute research as-
sociate, Psychiatrist Stuart Twemlow:
"In our studies of the effect of
the Monroe Tape system on brain waves,
we have found that the tapes encourage
the focusing of brain energy (it can be
measured as with a light bulb,
in watts)
into a narrower and narrower "frequency
band
.
This focusing of energy is not
unlike the yoga concept of one pointed-
ness,
which. we may translate in Western
terms
as single-mindedness.
As Focus
counts down,
there is a gradual increase
in brain-wave size, which is a measure
of brain energy or power.
"Although the significance of this
is not clear,
it could be speculated that
the tape system encourages the recruit-
ment of neurons in the brain to focus their
attention on a single task,
whether that
be to reduce tension on the muscles,
to
improve sleeping, or control pain".
"I'll describe three situations where
we have applied the Monroe tapes with un-
usually striking results.
The types of
patients with whom the tapes have
been tried, generally speaking, have been
chronic that is, have had their problem
for long periods of time".
"One such case was a middle-aged lady
who had severe pain resulting from problems
m the healing of an old fracture.
In
combining the tapes with a structured hos-
pital milieu, we determined that as she
began to relax the parts of her body which
had not been relaxed, were those pains
connected with psychological problems for
which the pain was serving the function
of "secondary gains".
That is,
the pain
appeared to help her cope with sane of the
psychological stresses in her everyday life
in a sense was kept going because it serv-
ed this adaptive function.
"As
we were able to deal with
this, she began to feel in control of
her life and her need to keep the pain
decreased.
After, discharge fron the hos-
pital,
this patient has continued to be
almost unrecognizable physically.
She
looks a great deal younger than she did
before,
she has her pain under control
and does not need any physical support
for
it.
Most strikingly, other parts
of her life from which she had been
very withdrawn, have now become a
source of gratification to her".
"The next case concerns a middle-
aged man with a very long history of
psychosomatic problems affecting prac-
tically every organ in his body.
A
psychological investigation found many
of these symptoms related to some sev-
ere surgical trauma which occured when
he was a young child.
In this case. we
combined the tape exercises,
especially,
the Focus
10 exercise with the sorts of
stimuli in his environment that
would
make him very anxious, that is,
the sti-
muli that reminded him of the surgical
trauma as a child.
Over a period of
weeks we exposed him both to the Focus
.10 deeply relaxed state and to the sti-
muli that wuuld make him very anxious
and upset.
Gradually he became desen-
sitized to
tine stimuli and was able to
feel
a. lot more in control of his life".
"— Dying man utilized the tape
system.
He also had severe pain which
had been impossible to control with
massive doses of narcotic.
Over a per-
iod of weeks,
he also acheived control.
Since he died, we've had a communication
from his wife.
She stated that he
played the tapes until he died and the
last week of his life, was caipletely
pain free and at peace".
"Our feeling was that both the
experience with acheiving control of
the part of his body that was painful
and preparing himself for death of his
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ctnd panicky.
The control and preparation
'nade him,
therefore, more ableto^Se
peace with the family- so important in
w^
19 pe0pjf
•
ln fact,
as we have noticec
with a number of j^ople who are dying,he
was able to give support to those around
su
f
fer the loss -
tS ensM^’h
' 10
?
5 °
Ms own Physical'
oody enabled him to mtergrate the re-
iTiaming fears he had in this direction.
Mnrr
n'
USe °f
016 tapes in a clinical set-
ting has pointed out that their effect
on reduction of street
-,na ^
,
,
ress ana tense muscles
is startling.
As a natter of fact,
it
mtSr^
t
?
at
i
n
£
t °nlY 1111150165 under vol-
untary control but also those under in-
voiuntary control
(smooth muscles,
such
as the muscles of the bladder)
may be re-
laxed with
tiie Focus
10 exercise".
Patients who are chronic feel verv
much out of control of the various symp^
oms they have.
As with a number of^the
newer therapeutic techniques, giving thL
=
Of control has a "sn«talT
e“
u
n
tne control of otiier symptoms
lation?h
CtS °f their interPersonal re-
otiier SiPS
‘ ^ they begin to aceive in
other acas resulting from this
"snowball"
cinglf feet"
SUCCess has
a reinfor-
090 be created by
tills.
For example,
one patient noted that he has had periods
of very high energy
in which he finds that
he is creative,
but which represent a
ange in his ordinary level of function-
ing to which other people take some time
to adjust.
He has' noticed,
for example,
that he needs
fewer hours
of sleep at
night and this
is ready to start the
day
s work a great deal earlier than most
other people
"
A number of patients Wk> have reg-
ularly practiced with the tapes have
found that they've become much more reflec-
ts
' less Physically active, and nore
satisfied with quieter sorts of hobbies and
day-to-day activities.
Becoming more in-
wardly turned is a characteristic of
people who learn to utilize sources of
gratification within their own heads
rather than having to constantly turn
to the outside world for gratification".
It seems
that Focus
is the basic
state which
is essential
to master before
being able to proceed.
Some of our pat-
101 its
licivo learned
-ho
in cfnfo
p
to induce the Focus
ar ,/ t
lelax their bodies while they
Wrk '
certain-
tiieir bodies
in between
-
:ome higniy stressful day-to-day working
situations,
some patients are now able
program their sleep,
so that they wake
certain
times,
a number of them with
insomnia have found themselves sleepSf
very restfully".
^
y
f
"°I1f patlent had noticed that a very
few minutes of sleep in Focus
10 seemef
equivalent
to him,
in terms of restfuF
vers, to many hours of sleep with his nor-
Jlkil
sleeping pattern.
— *’
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