Biofeedback Health Article

ELMER GREEN 1917–

A life dedicated to science has propelled Elmer Green, Ph.D. into careers as a physicist and a biological psychologist. Both led to his most noted work, the influence on the birth of the biofeedback movement. While the mechanics of moving parts and machinery lured the investigator from LaGrand, Oregon, to his work as a civilian scientist with the Navy in the late 1940s, it was his wife Alyce who caused him to ponder biophysiology and human development. In 1953 she read a book titled The Human Senses by Frank Geldard. It was their interests as a couple that led to their continued education at the University of Chicago. In 1957 Green began work for his Ph.D. studies in biopsychology, while Alyce studied for her Master's degree in psychology.

Numerous opportunities, including assisting with the development of a machine for the automated detection of brain damage, led to his position at the Menninger Institute in Topeka, Kansas, in 1964. While there he established the psychophysiology laboratory and the Voluntary Controls Program. It was his treatment of a colleague's wife's headaches that Green became convinced that skin temperature was an autonomic nervous system variable that was responsive to psychophysiologic self-regulation aided by thermal biofeedback. By learning to control temperature he found that headache control could be enhanced. Green's success attracted support by several of the Menninger staff who also began research and use of biofeedback therapy for headaches and hypertension.

The 1960s proved exciting for Green as he, Alyce, and colleague Dale Walters became involved with EEG Biofeedback, and studied the process of meditation—a therapy the Greens had long practiced. In April 1969, Green and his wife organized the Council Grove Conference for the study of the voluntary control of internal states. The conference served as a step toward forming the Biofeedback Research Society, which later became the Biofeedback Society of America, and currently the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.

Together, Elmer and Alyce Green authored numerous papers, book chapters, and wrote the book, Beyond Biofeedback (1977). They lectured throughout the United States and around the world for more than 20 years on multiple topics including EEG biofeedback training and psychophysiologic control.

Green co-founded the International Society For the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM) in 1990 and served as its director. Alyce died in 1994 of Alzheimer's disease. In 2000, 81-year-old Green worked as a professional consultant and director emeritus of the Voluntary Controls Program at the Menninger Clinic. He also served as the science director of the Dove Health Alliance in Aptos, California.

Beth A. Kapes