SUSAN

Kurt, I know we discussed this in other seminars, since we have you to ourselves, given your experience in MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) and your many years of that, can you described some of the similarities and differences you discovered between it and Open Focus™.

KURT

Yes definitely.  My wife Joan Griffiths Vega leads 8-week MBSR workshops for caregivers so I know a lot of people.  I’ve ended up working with a lot of teachers or people who have gone through the course, and I find that OF is such a great adjunct for them, especially around pain.  To understand the theory of attention is also a very helpful for anybody who is doing any kind of meditation or stress reduction.

For people who don’t know, MBSR was developed by Jon Kabat Zinn at the University of Mass Medical Center and it has been around for 35 years.  It is tremendously great work and it was also uses for pain reduction.  So, let me tell you what I think the differences are from people who I have come into contact with.

One of the things is pacing of the Open Focus exercises vs the MBSR meditations. 

One the first and major things you start with in MBSR, is a concentration practice where you come back to your breath.  That type of style is based on Vipassana Buddhist meditation, it has been around for a very long time.   You use your breath as an anchor.  When you become aware that your mind has wandered you bring it back to your breath. After that initial instruction there are instructions that guide your attention in additional ways. Both Open Focus™ exercises and MBSR meditations are forms of attention training.  The Open Focus™ instructions are more closely spaced than in MBSR. There is a 15 second space between instructions. It’s an interesting amount of time, enough to adjust your attention but by the time your attention may start to wander you are given the next instruction.

I also think the feeling of going directly for the feeling of space in and around the  body is a difference. If you are looking for something to act as an anchor in Open Focus™, it would be the feeling of space. In MBSR there is the body scan, it is a little bit similar, it’s more like some of the progressive relaxation techniques where you go to foot and then the calf, etc.  You are not drawing a direct feeling of space in the body, so that is new and I think it is a tremendous thing to start out with.

There is another style in MBSR that you learn later on that is called choiceless awareness.  It is similar to the feeling of space you end up quite quickly at in Open Focus™ where you have a very wide diffuse feeling of space.  So I think Open Focus™ gets to the core of something very quickly.  I also think the dissolving pain part of Open Focus is a really new innovation.  I think that MBSR only goes part way, and when you actually merge with the feeling of pain in an Open Focus™ exercise, that is a step beyond what my understanding of what MBSR does.  Also the idea that you are building up a three-dimensional feeling of space between different parts of your body and your pain is very different and unique to Open Focus™.  I think it is more effective because of that.

SUSAN

Many people have questions about binaural beats and brainwaves entrainment.  The people who make Holosync™ quote Les Fehmi as the expert in whole brain synchronization and whole head function and people think Les is part of this group and he isn’t.  You’ve had some experience with them.  How would you talk about them in the Open Focus™ context.

KURT

I’m glad you brought that up.  That was also a part of what I was doing in that period when I was under of a lot of stress.  I actually found it to be a little unsettling in a way.  It wasn’t helpful in that situation and I would always encourage people to do some sort of attention training that is self contained. I know when I talked to Dr. Fehmi about it, he said he hasn’t seen any studies and I haven’t either, so I don’t know how effective it is.  I would just say–– I’ve used it over a period of time, and it is not that there is nothing happening, but if you are just doing that, I think it would be a big mistake.  If you are under a lot of stress it could be harmful or at the every least not helpful.

SUSAN

Entrainment devices – for people who don’t know about the entrainment devices, they are devices already beating at a certain frequency and they drive the brain to produce that frequency as opposed to neurofeedback that teaches you to create those brainwaves yourself rather than entraining the brain to do it.

KURT

I think they are great for recreational use, and there is not much effort involved, which in many ways is a plus, but they are limited.  I’ve used them a lot through out the years including high end light and sound machines that were around in the 90’s. I always found them to be relaxing but I think doing an attention training like Open Focus™ is so much better.  I would always encourage people not to rely solely on entrainment but use it as an adjunct with some form of attention training.

 I’m glad you brought up neurofeedback because as you have pointed out it is completely different from entrainment. Some people when they see the neurofeedback equipment think it is somehow driving or stimulating the brain in someway. There are methods that do that like Transcranial Stimulation or LENS (Low Energy Neurofeedback System). But classic neurofeedback is a form of biofeedback that measures EEG waves within certain parameters that are set on the equipment. When the threshold is met you are given a reward, on Dr. Fehmi’s system it’s a flashing light and sound. On other systems it could be a playing a movie or a computer game of some kind.

One of the great things about the Open Focus™ method is you are not relying on anything thing external, it‘s just you and the method.  I know in the beginning it’s almost essential to listen to the CDs, but after a while you internalize it and you can do it on your own – that’s the fishing rod.

SUSAN

And you can do it while walking around doing your daily activities it is not just limited to an isolated practice time

KURT

Yes, I know there have been questions about that.  And that is one of most favorite things I do when I go into a park – looking at space between the objects instead of objects.  It’s great.

SUSAN

What about feeling your body filled with space moving through space, I love to do that.

KURT

Absolutely

SUSAN

We’re (Susan and Les) taking dancing lessons now; Les and I want to learn the waltz.   We were having trouble with one particular step.  The teacher said,

“Instead of doing it mechanically, feel the space between the two of you and maintain that space.”  I said, “I can do that.”!  And once you do that you are more graceful.

KURT

Dr. Fehmi do you have anything to add?

DR. FEHMI

Well, I would like to add that when you deal with space the brain waves become more synchronous and larger. Then over a number of years I tried to understand what that meant to my personal experience––which was profound.  And I slowly worked out the Open Focus™ exercises and my understanding of how they impact attention.  So I am just adding, don’t throw away the biofeedback or neurofeedback parts of it, they are very important also.