A woman was badly injured in an automobile accident. On one side of her face her facial nerve was severed, leaving her unable to move any part of the left side of her face and unable to close or blink her left eye. Surgeons decided to splice the severed facial nerve to a nerve in her neck-shoulder muscle. Once this was done, the woman could shrug or twitch her shoulder, and in this way cause the paralyzed side of her face to move, and blink her left eye. However, the movements of the left side of her face were uncoordinated, spastic, and not synchronous with the movements of the uninjured right side of her face. Biofeedback training seemed to offer a possible solution. Electrodes were taped to the injured side of her face. The electrical activity of muscles in the damaged area was displayed on a screen, along with the pattern that _would_ be produced by undamaged facial nerves and muscles. The woman's task was to watch the two patterns and somehow learn by inner experiment how to control the left side of her face so its movements would match the normal pattern and would then coordinate with movements of the other side. Her training lasted for several months. Because of her persistence and hard work, she was successful in learning to match the "normal" pattern; she was now able to move the two sides of her face in symmetrical harmony. Other successful physical applications of biofeedback therapy include these: * controlling high blood pressure * learning to raise blood pressure in cases of spinal injuries {214} that block the automatic raising of blood pressure when a person stands up (excessively low pressure causes them to faint) * coping more effectively with asthma attacks * eliminating migraine headaches * helping children with cerebral palsy control muscle spasms * helping stroke victims with proprioception problems (in which they lose the sense of where their arms and legs are in space) * teaching patients with circulation problems (e.g., blood clots in the legs) to dilate their blood vessels, regaining movement and reducing pain * assisting stutterers by helping them become aware of unnecessary and interfering muscle contractions they have come to make habitually when they speak and teaching them how to relax these muscles * reducing tension and pain in arthritis patients To date, of all the areas to which it has been applied, biofeedback has been _most_ successful for patients who are physically paralyzed or have movement disorders. PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS Biofeedback has been used successfully in psychotherapy in these ways: * teaching general relaxation methods, which can be useful to many people who have problems that involve anxiety, depression, or phobias * assisting people with insomnia, also through relaxation techniques