It did not turn out that way that way, however.  Once I began the systematic study of human minds, emotions and capabilities, I was hooked.  Instead of becoming a creative writer with a good grounding in psychology, I became a psychologist with an artist’s viewpoint and a philosopher’s passion for some of life’s Big Questions.

Big Questions
The big questions that have fascinated me the most over the past four decades are these:
1) What are the highest levels that human consciousness can attain?  
2) How do our minds and bodies interact with each other, given that they seem to be so fundamentally different?

My work as a psychotherapist and a researcher has always revolved around these questions.  In my work with clients I have emphasized developing the means toward greater health rather than merely solving problems of dysfunction. I have moved steadily beyond attending only to psychopathology, toward studying and applying methods that involve learning and growing as humans.

Later, when systems thinking and deep ecology attracted my interest, I had the good fortune to study and work with Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eventually co-authoring a book with her, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (1998). Along the way, I earned a master's degree in humanistic and transpersonal psychology (1979) and a Masters of Divinity (1993) from Starr King School at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.

I join Jim in Shasta Brainrise because I find the potential of this method so promising, and because Jim and I have always enjoyed working together. 

My own personal and spiritual development has centered in psychosynthesis, nature, and spiritual teachings from many traditions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism, and indigenous and pagan traditions.

Neurofeedback
Within a year after our return to New Mexico I joined the Biofeedback Society of America and began attending its annual conventions in Colorado, where I met and learned from many of the pioneers in that burgeoning field.  One of them was Lester Fehmi, a psychologist from Princeton, New Jersey, who became a friend and mentor in the most complex specialty within biofeedback:  neurofeedback or “brainwave training.” (See the section on Neurofeedback for more information.)

Fehmi had done extensive research in this specialty, and had designed an instrument—unique at that time—for brainwave feedback from several different parts of the cerebral cortex.  This multi-channel capability was vital for enabling people to increase synchronization of brainwaves between the two hemispheres of the brain. Fehmi, a Zen meditator, had discovered that interhemispheric synchronization of brainwaves in the alpha frequency range (8 to 12 cycles per second) was associated with the depth of a meditative state of consciousness.

Intuitively I grasped the cutting-edge importance of this instrument, and obtained one for use in my private practice in New Mexico. I also learned from Fehmi a series of guided meditations for training attention, which he called "open focus" training. (Fehmi has since published a book, The Open Focus Brain, that includes many of these meditations intended to deepen the effects of neurofeedback training.)

Shortly after obtaining the equipment, I enrolled in an intensive training course in San Francisco that culminated in certification by the Biofeedback Society of California as a biofeedback trainer.  Thus began my career as a health psychologist specializing in biofeedback.

Doctoral Studies
The next major step in addressing the Big Questions stated above (about the potential of human consciousness and the nature of the mind/body connection) was to enroll in a doctoral program at the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now known as Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center).  There, for the next several years, I would study under the guidance of pioneers in consciousness research such as Stanley Krippner.  I would also learn a great deal about research in the social sciences.  Both these fields of study would prepare me for the research opportunities that helped me find answers to my questions.

Research Projects
After enrolling at the Humanistic Psychology Institute, I contracted with the Indian Health Service (a branch of the U.S. Public Health Service) to conduct a five-year research project studying the effectiveness of biofeedback as treatment for stress-related illness within a Native American population in New Mexico.  That research demonstrated that the mind/body interaction involved in biofeedback training has a measurable therapeutic effect on both the physical and psychological effects of stress.  The mind/body approach proved compatible with the cultural practices of the Native Americans, more so even than in mainstream America. The next major research project I undertook was the one resulting in my dissertation, the culmination of my doctoral studies.  In this one I focused on the relationship between patterns of brainwaves (see section on Neurofeedback) and states of consciousness.  I discovered that meditators and channelers have brainwave patterns that are very distinct from those in people who neither meditate nor channel.  That enabled me to contribute to the development of theory pertaining to mind/body interaction, especially in non-ordinary consciousness states.  Besides increasing my understanding of mind/body interaction, this research gave me a close-up view of the farther reaches of human consciousness.