INITIAL EXPLORATION
Learning about
breathing is not simply making a measurement.
It is about a partnership exploration, client
and practitioner. Understanding that
breathing is behavior, is vital to a productive exploration. Breathing changes immediately and
significantly as a result of thoughts, feelings, people, physical experience,
sense of self, and specific life circumstances.
A client may breathe well in front of you, but deregulate immediately in
front of her/his spouse, supervisor, or teacher.
During the session,
the practitioner conducts a breathing interview for purposes of identifying: (1) deregulated
breathing patterns and counterproductive breathing mechanics, (2)
physical symptoms, performance deficits, cognitive changes, and emotions associated
with breathing, and (3) possible learning histories that may have
set the stage for learning overbreathing behavior.
During the
interview, changes in PCO2 and breathing mechanics based on changing
conversational content are continuously monitored. Before the session, the client is required to
complete the Breathing Interview
Checklist, a historical accounting of possible breathing-related
symptoms Practitioner observations of
breathing are recorded on the Practitioner
Checklist throughout the session. If
the session is to be conducted on the Internet, the client also fills out the Personal Checklist, which substitutes
for practitioner observations. The
following kinds of considerations are explored, discussed, and evaluated:
●
What are the specific breathing complaints?
●
When did the complaints first
appear?
●
What are the associated symptoms and deficits?
● What emotions and
thoughts accompany the symptoms?
● What kind of
self-talk about breathing is there?
● How does the breathing
behavior interfere with performance?
● What are the
specific triggers, including when, where, and with whom?
● Is there fear
associated with breathing? How so?
● Is breathing a
“struggle?” How so?
● Is the
deregulation specific or pervasive?
● Are there “unexplained” symptoms that tie
together with the breathing?
● How does your
client cope with the breathing challenges?
What does s(he) do?
● What are his/her opinions about why s(he) breathes the way s(he) does?
Learned
overbreathing behavior may be triggered by any of the following:
● task challenges, e.g., cars, planes,
computers ● social situations, e.g., meeting people,
authority figures ● emotional circumstances, e.g., relationship
issues, anger problems ● physical limitations, e.g., pain, discomfort ● learning
environments, e.g., testing, school, skill acquisition, ● past
trauma, e.g., injuries, emotional abuse ● disease,
e.g., asthma
Reviewing
CapnoTrainer® recordings in the context of behavioral
observations, client comments, checklist data, and interview content, provides
for development of testing strategies for experiential exploration of breathing
and its effects.
Copyrighted by
Behavioral Physiology Institute,