Telephone based conferences in critical areas of psychophysiology

PROBLEM: Both clinical and research areas of psychophysiology are rife with unsolved dilemmas. While they are occasionally discussed at meetings, insufficient time is usually available to consider them sufficiently to develop potential solutions. A major impediment is that the key people with the knowledge to work out the problems simply aren’t together long enough to work on the problem together. The Foundation hopes to rectify this problem by conducting telephone based conferences during which key people have ample time over a period of weeks to consider the problem and each other’s ideas.

INTENT: The Behavioral Medicine R&T Foundation supports telephone based conferences in critical areas of psychophysiology. The intent is to provide a way for a very few experts in an area of psychophysiology to communicate in an effort to solve a crucially important issue in the field. For example, a realistic placebo for EEG biofeedback is desperately needed.

PROCESS: Anyone within the field of psychophysiology may recommend a topic for teleconference evaluation. Once a topic is approved by the Foundation’s board, one of the board members will coordinate the conference. A key expert in the field will be chosen to chair the conference and a panel of experts will be selected by the board member and chair. While many formats for the conference are possible, the most probable to produce results will be to have the panel meet for four weeks in one hour blocks. Each week, the panel will meet for one hour wherein a panel member will give a 20-minute presentation that will be followed by discussion.  A condition of support is that the chair and members of the panel agree to develop a final report in publishable format within two months of the end of the conference.  The foundation will fund the conference call and perform all administrative and coordination functions. No funds are available to pay for the panel’s time. Anyone interested in organizing a conference should contact the Foundation’s director, Dr. Sherman, at rsherman@nwinet.com.