client responsibility

Alpha Conditioning as an Adjunct Treatment for Drug Dependence: Part II

The use of alpha biofeedback in a multimodal client-centered program is seen to have certain unique advantages for treating an opiate-abusing population. It employs immediate reinforcement for success in a task which virtually all subjects can accomplish. Subjects are seen to be responding to intrinsically important motives, including the desire to reduce transient, situational anxiety or to seek a state of euphoria. The concreteness and nonverbal nature of the alpha techniques appear to be favorably contrasted to the word therapy techniques which client populations have often found unsuccessful and/or rewarding. The shift of responsibility for health onto the client, combined with the achievement of self-produced success experiences, appears to offer a useful method for therapeutic generalization and treatment.Reservations in such use of alpha biofeedback include the fact that little or no controlled study of alpha as a therapeutic modality has been published. Also, there are data suggesting that anxiety reduction and increase in alpha are not intrinsically tied together. Finally, alpha use is suggested only as one link in a total program focusing on the unique history and motives of the client. The maladaptive motives and habits of the clients make alpha control useful at an early stage, but the therapeutic program must lead to the development of styles of thought and behavior fostering autonomy from such existential crutches. Research is needed to clarify both the short -and long-term functions that alpha can serve in a therapeutic program and the types of substance abusers that can most profit from its use. More clarification is also needed in the exact techniques of alpha training to allow comparison and criticism.