GSR Course (1)

The Galvanic Skin Response

The Tarchanoff Response is a change in DC potential across neurons of the autonomic nervous system connected to the sensori-motor strip of the cortex. This change was found to be related to the level of cortical arousal. The emotional charge on a word, heard by a subject, would have an immediate effect on the subject's level of arousal, and cause this physiological response. Because the hands have a particularly large representation of nerve endings on the sensori-motor strip of the cortex, hand-held electrodes are ideal. As arousal increases, the 'fight or flight' stress response of the autonomic nervous system comes into action, and adrenaline causes increased sweating amongst many other phenomena, but the speed of sweating response is nowhere near as instantaneous or accurate as the Tarchanoff response.

The most advanced layers of the cortex, unique to man, link to the thumb and forefinger especially, and there is a further complex physiological response which occurs when the forebrain is aroused: changes in Alpha rhythms cause blood capillaries to enlarge, and this too affects resistance.

By virtue of the Galvanic Skin Response, autonomic nervous system activity causes a change in the skin's conductivity. The overall degree of arousal of the whole brain, is shown by the reads of the GSR Meter, which does not differentiate between the hemispheres, or between cortical and primitive brain responses. Higher arousal (such as occurs with increased involvement) will almost instantaneously (0.1 - 0.5 sec) cause a fall in skin resistance; reduced arousal (such as occurs with withdrawal) will cause a rise in skin resistance.

Thus a rise or fall on the GSR Meter directly relates to reactive arousal, due to reactivation of repressed mental conflict, releasing emotional charge. When the conflict or unknowingness is resolved, by confronting objective reality, there is understanding and the charge dissipates.

The Being is involved, because it is the causative Being that knows the objective truth and therefore is in conflict with distorted mental contents. The Being, however, is not part of the brain; the Higher Self is a quality not a quantity, and is essentially not anywhere, except by consideration. The Being is a non-verbal knowingness that lies back of mental awareness and activity, but which is capable of influencing the composite human being, through will and creative choice, by postulate.

Jung and Mathison

Without amplification, this device was difficult to use, thus it remained as little more than a laboratory curiosity until the development of sophisticated valve amplifiers in the 1930s. Once a portable psycho-galvanometer with amplification was available, the idea of using a psycho-galvanometer was picked up with enthusiasm by criminologists. These meters became known as 'lie detectors', and have been used by various police forces, in this manner, for more than 60 years. On the other hand, little further work was done in psychotherapy with the psycho-galvanometer, until Biofeedback Research in the 1970s using the GSR meter in connection with meditation and relaxation became popular.

Biofeedback is the technique of self-regulation of awareness states by the subject. The level of cortical arousal is central to a person's level of awareness, so a machine that can measure this factor is of the first importance in biofeedback. Many papers have been presented on this subject over the last 25 years, and the most important findings of this research are:

1. A low level of cortical arousal is desirable for relaxation, hypnosis, and the subjective experience of psychic states and unconscious manifestations.

2. A high level of cortical arousal gives increased powers of reflection, focused concentration, increased reading speed, and increased capacity for long-term recall.

3. Cortical arousal has a simple relationship to skin conductivity. Arousal of the cortex increases the conductivity of the skin and conversely, a drop in arousal causes a drop in skin conductivity. With a sensitive GSR Meter the level of arousal can be brought under conscious control. With a few hours' practice the level of arousal can be consciously controlled over wide limits. It is a biological response.

Volney Mathison was a pioneer in the discovery that all fears, feelings and resentments - all thought and emotion - were electrical in their nature. He found through experiments with lie-detectors during the 1940s that when a person was reminded of certain past events, or when a change of mood was induced in him, the needle in the psycho-galvanometer would jump erratically; the degree of jump was in proportion to the strength of unconscious reaction. In skilled hands the psycho-galvanometer could be used to locate a particular mental content, the nature of that content, the location of that content in space and time, and the amount of force contained within it.

His researches with lie-detectors in the 1940's made it possible for Volney Mathison to go on and invent the modern type of portable transistorised GSR meter - a type that has survived with very little change, until the present day. The current GSR meters take advantage of state-of-the-art electronics to be completely automatic in operation, very sensitive and extremely reliable, with ideal ballistics and very low power consumption, but the fundamental principles remain the same.

Mathison went on to develop a word-list to be used in conjunction with the psycho-galvanometer. He would ask the subject under analysis to take hold of the meter's electrodes, then he would read this list of words to him. Without fail, some of these words would trigger a read on the meter, and in some cases violently. Whenever this was the case, Mathison knew that these words were associated with violent and negative fear or resentment that had its origin in unconscious (reactive) complexes in the subject's mind. Most of the time, the subject was completely unaware that he was reacting on the meter in this way.

The GSR Meter

The GSR Meter has user-changeable AA batteries, a power on switch, a voltage test switch which also functions as an off switch, a large needle dial, a Sensitivity Control and a Balance Control (the Ability Mark 3 GSR Meter has automatic balancing negating the need for a Balance Control, and two manual Reset buttons and a Reset foot-switch). In addition there is a Balance Point display, a Balance Action display and a time display. There is a 'hold' switch for the Balance Action so that the electrodes may be put down and the session resumed without change in Balance Action (a pointer flashes in the Balance Point display when on hold). The Balance Action is reset to zero by re-pressing the power on switch.

In general, the GSR Meter tells you what the subject's mind is doing when he or she is asked to think of various things. When working with a client, two electrodes are used, one in each hand; when working alone, a special type of 'double' electrode is held in the left hand, leaving the right hand free to write session notes.

Provided you understand the GSR Meter, how it responds, and the various needle reactions, you can learn to interpret with remarkable accuracy exactly what the subject (or oneself) is going through, where he or she is at case-wise, and the best steps to take to ensure he or she can make fast case gains.

One of the most accurate ways of counselling is with the use of a GSR Meter. The meter can detect very minute changes in the electrical conductivity of an individual's body - depending on his or her mental and physical state at any given time. It uses a transistorised Wheatstone Bridge circuit to magnify any changes in electrical resistance. The voltage is only about half a volt so it's quite safe! The client doesn't feel anything as the current flow is so small.

There are many meters currently in use to measure changes in body resistance. Mostl of them work in the same way; the large needle dial reflects what the client's mind is doing when he is asked to think of certain things.

Provided you understand the meter, how it responds, and the various needle reactions, you can learn to interpret with remarkable accuracy exactly what your client is going through and determine the best steps to take to ensure he or she will make adequate progress. It is important especially with new clients, to keep them winning and the meter can greatly assist in achieving this.

It should be pointed out that the reason the meter reads has nothing to do with hands sweating and un-sweating as some people have suggested. For this to be true the client's hands would have to sweat and un-sweat very fast to give you the kind of variation in readings common in the average session.

Although the meter may be likened to a lie detector, this is not how it is used within the correct therapeeutic procedures. With the right line of questioning, and a harmonious rapport between practitioner and client, the meter is like a window into the person's inner state of mind. The next best thing to being telepathic!

The GSR Meter reads on thoughts and feelings BEFORE the subject becomes aware of them. This is mainly because the meter is a very responsive indicator of mental arousal. When a person is asked a question about a matter he may have emotional charge on, the effect is to cause a 'ripple in the water' so to speak, and once magnified by the meter electronics it is represented by a movement of the needle. By getting the subject to look for an answer to the question, the needle will be found to again give the same read as the subject's attention comes close to locating the relevant charge, and by saying "There" or "That" every time the same read repeats, the subject can have his attention guided to the exact item which made the GSR Meter read in the first place. This is called 'steering' and may be used individually as well as with clients. It's just like having a radar system which helps you home in on a target.

We will describe in detail what each part of the GSR Meter is and what its application is. The best way to become familiar with the GSR Meter is to have one available while you read this; get used to it, touch it, switch things on and off and so on, and in general try to get so acquainted with it that it becomes nothing more unusual than driving a car or using a TV.

BALANCE CONTROL:

The Balance Control is the main control the practitioner deals with during the session, and needs to be adjusted depending on the changing state of the subject. This is accomplished automatically with the Mark 3a GSR Meter. The electrical current passing through the subject's body via the electrodes, small though this current is, varies depending on just how much resistance is present in the subject's body. To compensate for changes in bodily resistance (due to the psycho-galvanic effect), you will need to adjust the Balance Control to keep the needle on the dial. When the subject thinks of something there is a change in mental arousal, a bodily change in resistance, and a corresponding variation on the needle.

Each subject has a customary overall body resistance or 'Balance Point' (BP), also called the 'basal resistance', which typically lies between 10,000 and 40,000 Ohms, equivalent to 2.4 - 3.4 on the Balance Control. This is indicated by restoring the needle to the Set position and noting the position of the Balance Control on the Balance scale, which runs from 0.5 to 6.5. This position is called the Balance Point. Various physical conditions can affect this value and should be assessed before the session. The age of the subject, cold hands or feet, dry or sweaty hands, electrodes that are too big or too small to be held comfortably, can all affect the Balance Point. So can fatigue, hunger, tight shoes or clothing, drugs or alcohol, or even unhealthy eating habits. It is necessary to eliminate all of these factors before evaluating the Balance Point.

The position of the Balance Control when it is in the normal range has no direct connection with emotional tone. A dead body would have a constant level of resistance and hence Balance Point. The live body, controlled by the Being via the mind (through the brain interface), has a very different read on the GSR Meter. An emotionally stable person (one who has a 'majority share-holding' over the reactive aspects of the mind) can affect the GSR Meter at will, whereas a depressed person who is dissociated from his feelings may only register as a stuck needle. A 'dead in the head' (unconscious or 'not there') person probably won't add or subtract from the dead body read. The average person, however, will be found to register in the 'normal' range (2.2 to 4.0), and have a fairly responsive needle behavior. (Note, this is using two hand electrodes. 'Solo' dual electrodes, held in one hand, have less skin contact and so the Balance Point is about 0.5 higher, so the normal range is then 2.7 to 4.5.)

During the course of a session, where reactive mental content is deliberately reactivated, the Balance Point may move to a high position (4.5 or more, using two hand electrodes) or to a low position (2.0 or less, using two hand electrodes) but when the case being handled is resolved the BP (Balance Point) will return to normal.

During any session, as the subject confronts various parts of his mental environment - pictures, emotions, concepts and so on - the Balance Control will have to be moved up and down to keep the needle visible on the dial; this is because of variations in electrical resistance as emotionally charged items are pulled in, viewed, and fully confronted (seen exactly for what they are). In fact this is a very good way of measuring just how much valuable work has been done in the session. The GSR Meter has a Balance Action display for this purpose. A count of Balance Action gives you a guide to the case progress of the subject or the lack of it. This information is used to judge what processes or steps would benefit the subject most and which ones to discontinue if the Balance Action was minimal. Noting the Balance Action gives you a good idea of when a session is going well or when it is ineffective and some remedy needs to be taken. If a procedure is producing good Balance Action, the last thing you would do would be to change to a different procedure.

Working with a procedure, it will usually be found that as the case handling is continued, the Balance Action will increase and remain good for some time, and as the case progresses, with most of the charge on the subject in question having been dealt with, the Balance Action will gradually diminish. This can be a helpful way to gauge just how far one has progressed on the issues being examined without overrunning the matter or leaving something important overlooked.

A Balance Drop (BD) occurs when the Balance arm needs to be moved to a lower position in order to get the needle back on the dial after a Long Fall. This only happens on a case when some mental mass has been released, i.e. something in the case has been spotted and confronted. Hence BDs are what you are looking for and represent case gain (= Balance Action).

If the BP (Balance Point) is high at the start of session, i.e. above 4.0 (or 4.5 using solo electrodes), this means that there is something in reactivation, and the correct action by the practitioner would be to locate and release it without reactivating anything else. The practitioner's job is usually to firstly detect the area in which the subject is most reactivated and then with the correct procedure run that reactivation out.

A high BP is often an inevitable consequence of reactivation of highly charged (deeply suppressed) areas of case - it will go down again when that case is resolved. It also relates to a feeling of disagreement or protest, and these things need to be communicated and resolved. However, problems like dry or wet hands, cold electrodes etc. as mentioned above make a big difference to the position of the Balance Control due to large variations, not of the case state but of the physical state of the body.

SENSITIVITY KNOB:

Once you have the subject on the GSR Meter with the needle showing on the dial, there is another important control which is a subsidiary of the Balance Control. This knob is the Sensitivity adjustment, which is another way of saying a 'variable amplifier' or volume control. In the same way as you can increase the power of a microscope to be able to home-in on a detail, with increased Sensitivity you are able to detect in detail what is going on in the subject's case. Sometimes the mental masses are so solid that to make any detectable impingement, you have to work with a Sensitivity that is wound up very high. On the other hand the subject may be so separated from his case (so that reactivation is excessively out of control, as with a psychotic) that unless you use a low Sensitivity setting the needle is moving about so much that it is very difficult to keep it on the dial long enough to see what it is reading on.

The practitioner usually sets up the correct Sensitivity setting at the start of the session but as the session progresses, he may have to alter it according to how the session is running. If the subject is reactivated at the beginning you may have to use a high Sensitivity, but as the session runs you might find the needle is all over the dial and the Sensitivity needs to be reduced. You also might find that you have to turn up the Sensitivity as the subject contacts some important and massy area of case, or else the needle just seems to go solid and nothing you ask apparently reads.

During the session it is up to the practitioner where he sets the Sensitivity. It is normally set at the start of session so that a light squeeze of the electrodes causes a Fall of about half a dial. To be on the safe side there is nothing to stop you turning it up if you plan to, say, assess a correction list (i.e. check the items on a list to see if one causes a Fall). If the subject has symptoms such as a tight (barely moving) needle, then by all means turn it up.

The Spirit-Mind-Body Relationship

The Being is able, at will, to adopt a viewpoint from which to perceive and to have considerations, opinions and intentions. This Higher Mind is one kind of mind - the mind of the Higher Self. The Being also has the ability to stick itself in a fixed and located identity, such as the identification with a human body, in order to perceive, experience life and express itself through an organic system.

But the human body also has a life of its own: it is a genetic entity - a life form programmed by genes. It is further conditioned by stimulus-response learning, imprinted by traumatic (intense) stimuli and cultural (repetitive or long duration) stimuli. The body has in-built survival drives and develops a sophisticated intelligence (like a monkey but more so due to further evolution of the brain). It may also be programmed by the Being. This second kind of mind, the Body-Mind, that of a fixed identity - a Composite between Body and Spiritual Being - therefore has both analytical and reactive programs, both of which may be aberrated: irrational computations and stimulus-response emotions. In the case of a human being, the imprinted mental programs are carried out by the brain, an incredibly sophisticated computer.

A stimulus, such as an image or perception, may cause an increase of brain arousal if the stimulus is interpreted as frightening or interesting (incitement to act), or a decrease of brain arousal if the stimulus is interpreted as reassuring or of no interest. This stress or relaxation response is transmitted throughout the autonomic nervous system, and because the nervous system is electrical, the emotional response is measurable as a change in skin resistance. Increase in tension and arousal will cause a 'fall' of the needle to the right of the dial on a GSR (Galvanic Skin Resistance) GSR Meter corresponding to a fall in body resistance, and relaxation or detachment will cause a 'rise' of the needle to the left corresponding to a rise in body resistance.

Overwhelm would cause the Balance Point (overall body resistance) to drop below 2.0 on the meter scale as the arousal and tension from a perceived threat causes the needle to continue falling towards the bottom of the Balance scale; and dissociation (a detachment or withdrawal caused by non-confront) would cause a rise above 4.5 on the meter scale. A 'floating,' softly oscillating needle phenomena, on the other hand, occurs when there is no reactive activity or conflict occurring between the Body-Mind and the Higher Mind and there is an open-channel. The needle follows the gentle pulse - reach and withdraw - on the (subtle-energy) communication line. this is referred to as a 'Periodic Needle' (P/N).

If the Higher Mind and the Body-Mind are not differentiated, confusion results. Part of the misunderstanding stems from an identification of the thinking personality, the left-brain verbal 'ego', with the awareness of awareness which is the Being. The verbal intelligence is very much 'of the brain', whereas the Being is not 'of the brain' but influences the brain through non-verbal communication: will, communicated through intuition.

Because the communication of the Being is non-verbal, the right hemisphere is the medium for such communication. This is the nature of 'intuition': the Being communicating via the non-verbal right-brain to the verbal left-brain, expressing awareness often interpreted by the right brain in the form of metaphor or symbolic images, in order to relay intentions. For the Being to be able to influence all of the Body-Mind's activities depends therefore upon integration of the left and right hemispheres, so that the brain is 'awake' and not obscuring this direct communication line. The following diagram illustrates how the Spiritual Being (YOU) inter-relates with the human Body-Mind:

The Spiritual Being is able to operate a mind quite independently from the brain, making mental pictures (including all perceptics) as desired and communicating pictures to the right brain, or communicating intention, will or choice to the right brain. These then change the arousal level and affect the GSR Meter.

The Body-Mind has learnt the programs for 'intelligence': it can do an IQ test unaided by the Being. Only the Being, however, has knowingness, awareness of its own goals and creative intention or will. Being essentially outside of space and time, it has an objective viewpoint that is unaffected by the irrational or reactive mental processes of the Body-Mind subconscious. It is the source of the highest values of life, love and truth. It is the conflict between the knowingness of the Being (causation) and the Body-Mind's lies or suppressions (alteration and negation) that causes a stress-response and therefore the GSR Meter to give a read.

The brain does have functions, they can be improved, and these functions relate directly to spiritual awareness; the whole of preparatory case handling works to this end, since brain malfunction (inhibited communication between hemispheres) is a direct consequence of unfaced experience and charged (frustrated) intentions, i.e. the suppression of the experience of reality in the right brain by the defense mechanisms of the left-brain ego.

The Use of Biofeedback in Therapy

The overall (basal) reading of body resistance, itself provides the practitioner with useful information about the subject. Values lower than 5K ohms ('2' on the GSR Meter's Balance control using two hand electrodes) indicate a high level of brain arousal, with high anxiety (towards overwhelm) and concentrated introspection. At the other extreme, values higher than 100K ohms ('4.5' on the Balance scale using two hand electrodes) indicate low arousal and withdrawal from the mind (dissociated states of poor concentration, limited self awareness, non-confront, over-reactivation, boredom, fantasy, switch-off, apathy). Readings between these extremes indicate progress of the case during a session.

When repressed material is coming to the surface (e.g. material associated with guilt), initially the body resistance rises as the material is resisted, but as the client begins to confront the material he naturally experiences feelings of tension. There will be a fall of the needle as the material becomes accessible, often causing some anxiety in the process, but with the help of the practitioner this can be overcome and the material confronted - that is, if the client is 'in session': interested in his own case and in good communication with the practitioner. Then, when the repressed material is fully confronted and communicated to the practitioner, the negative emotion discharges. There is usually a large drop in body resistance and the client experiences relief.

The same phenomena occurs in individual work. A question may cause the needle to fall on the GSR Meter indicating that charge is accessible, but as the material in answer to the question is examined there may be resistance, causing a rising needle; with further confront, more falls will occur. When fully confronted (viewed with equanimity) - the objective truth realized - there is a long fall and corresponding relief, followed by a 'periodic' needle. For this to occur the client must be 'in session': interested in the subject being examined, in touch with his inner feelings and willing to reveal and confront them.

reactivation (stimulation of reactive mental content) may occur in session due to the materials being examined, or out of session due to environmental occurrences or random chains of thought. reactivation, if slight, may cause detachment as an effort to withdraw and be relaxed, but when the reactivation increases so that the reactive content is very real, anxiety arises and inevitably, tension. The state of withdrawal is relaxed when it results from detachment from worldly cares or abandoning responsibility; or alternatively, withdrawal is experienced as tense, when there is an inability to fully confront repressed material or circumstances. Involvement is experienced as tense when matters are confronted but unresolved, or it becomes relaxed when there is a flash of insight and the blockage is cleared away. If that which is being confronted becomes overwhelming, arousal may become too high and the person may revert to withdrawal and detachment again.

When reactivated mental content is confronted, repression dissolves into awareness. When not confronted, detachment may suffice but if further involvement is enforced, anxiety results. These, then, are basic functions of the mind and are clearly represented by the GSR Meter.

A high level of arousal can be pleasant and exciting when a person is relaxed and aware, with integrated hemispheric arousal, such as when insight has been gained in session; or high arousal may be experienced as unpleasant when tension exists, trauma is being repressed and one hemisphere is aroused more than the other. Proportional to a person's erasure or transcendence of traumatic material, there is an increased capacity to operate at high arousal, in a relaxed state without discomfort.

The object of psychotherapeutic procedures is to bring into the light of inspection, old inappropriate programs or behavior patterns and their corresponding imprinted decisions and postulates. This does not necessarily demand looking into the past; the patterns and decisions will be active in the present, especially if the topic being addressed is one that the client particularly has his attention on, or is concerned about.

The GSR Meter helps the Practitioner to discover these key items, since when one's attention is drawn to an item, the charge on the item will cause an increase in brain arousal, which is visible on the GSR Meter as a sudden fall in body resistance, i.e. an instantaneous fall of the needle. (The needle is much quicker to fall in response to tension than to rise in response to relaxation, this being a characteristic of the autonomic nervous system; 'reads' on the GSR Meter are therefore easily distinguishable from hand movements or fidgeting, which causes an equally fast rise and fall).

The needle will first react to items when they are just below conscious awareness, i.e. in the Preconscious mind and therefore accessible to conscious inspection. There will always be a minimum response time of 0.1 to 0.5 second (varying between individuals), depending on the time taken for mental processing and for the nervous system to conduct the impulse to the hand electrode. The Preconscious response will however come within 0.75 second at most. A response time of approximately 1.0 seconds or more correlates with the first aware (i.e. conscious) reaction: this is called a 'latent' response. It is the initial Preconscious reaction that is of most interest, since we are trying to coax into awareness the repressed parts of mental content.

A fast needle movement that stops very suddenly as though the needle had hit a wall indicates material that is heavily repressed with a defense mechanism (this may correspond to guilt) and has been forced back into the Subconscious. The faster the needle reaction, the greater the emotional content. A large read ('long fall') indicates that the item is both near to the surface and also that it is ready to be faced. When the read is noted by the Practitioner, he will have more than an inkling of what the buried item is and be able to 'pull' the material and examine it objectively.

It should be noted that even a 'tick', a tiny read of the needle, means that an item is available. While a tick or small fall may not be related to significant problems, very often such items are actually more heavily repressed and are the 'tip of an iceberg', connecting with the primary case of the unconscious. It is therefore also important to spot the feelings, emotions, appearance and comments of the person on the GSR Meter, as these reflect the depth of the charge that is being contacted. The GSR Meter is an invaluable aid but it does not necessarily tell the whole story; as a Practitioner you should not ignore your feelings and 'knowingness' on any item being examined.

The following diagram illustrates different types of needle reads, and what depth of case the read may relate to:

A 'Balance Drop' is a long fall of resistance that stays down for a period, and usually accompanies a conscious realization about the material being viewed. When the therapeutic process begins, the reactivation of the unfaced reactive mental content will tend to cause an increase of body resistance (felt subjectively as 'mass') and the Balance Point (position of the Balance Control) rises. As introspection occurs and the item is confronted and cleaned of charge, the Balance Point drops. This means arousal increases but also, in this context, it means less withdrawal, less inhibition from past patterns and therefore the subjective feeling is one of greater freedom. Insight will have been gained and when the client feels that the problem is solved and the charge has been released, his attention is unattached in the present and a 'floating' needle action results: oscillating gently and evenly over an area that may be as much as a dial wide. This corresponds with finding a truth - an understanding, which has no charge (further lies) attached to it.

This mini-satori may be accompanied by considerable excitement and the subjective feeling of 'That's great!' or 'I know that's true'. It is the indicator that the current procedure has reached an endpoint and a break in the session is then normally a good idea. A release, though, is not necessarily a full erasure, and an insight is not necessarily the whole truth. So depending on the procedure in use, often it is necessarily to take this item up again and explore where that leads.