Biofeedback and Its Role in Treating Paruresis

Biofeedback is a particularly promising form of treatment for paruresis.  The problem all too often for people with shy bladder problems is that it can be related to mental stress and anxiety.  The benefit of biofeedback in this case is that by addressing the issues of stress and anxiety, it can go a long way toward helping people with a bashful bladder.

How Biofeedback Can Help with Shy Bladder Problems

To understand how biofeedback can help alleviate shy bladder issues, there first has to be an understanding of how biofeedback works.  It’s not by any means a “miracle cure” or “magic bullet,” but it has been proven highly effective for stress related problems and with urinary incontinence.  One key element is that the client must go into biofeedback therapy with the right attitude.

Biofeedback works by training the patient to consciously take control over seemingly involuntary processes.  Certainly, at this point, the person with a shy bladder feels like this situation is as involuntary as their heart beat.  The beauty of biofeedback therapy is that within certain limits, people can control their heart beat and it’s actually part of the process.

The essential idea is the old statement of “mind over matter.”  It’s a proven fact that whatever is going on in a person’s mind will affect what their body is doing.  If someone can take control over what’s happening in their mind, they can, by proxy, take control over a variety of conditions in their body.

The way biofeedback achieves this is by providing a patient with measurements of certain stress related conditions, including elevated heart rate, muscle tension, and brainwave activity.  The trick then is to find a way to bring these readings down to a more relaxed state.  It’s pretty much an empirical process to find what mental or physical exercises (such as breath control) are most effective in achieving relaxation for the individual.

For one person, it could be a simple matter of slowing down their breathing and visualizing a sunny meadow.  For another, it could be something else entirely.  Because what goes on in a person’s mind, as well as their reaction to it, is purely subjective, the goal is to find one set of exercises that works on the individual level.

These exercises are then compiled into a routine for the patient to observe on a regular basis, and especially when they feel stressed.  Again, the key element is relaxation, and a negative approach hampers progress.  It may sound like so much “snake oil” to a lot of people, but the fact is that there is a lot of experimental evidence to support it.

What This Information Means for a Bashful Bladder

Having a bashful bladder is typically an involuntary response to the subjective anxiety of urinating in a public place.  That is, the stress over the idea of other people witnessing one urinate can cause a person to unconsciously retain their urine.  The problem isn’t so much the response mechanism, it’s the mental anxiety.

How biofeedback helps people overcome shy bladder problems is that it helps provide demonstrable evidence of how what the mind is doing affects the body.  By this, the patient and the therapist can determine what kinds of mental activity can distract the mind from or remove anxious thoughts most effectively.  It’s nipping the problem in the bud.

This technology has been effective so far in treating a host of stress related problems such as migraine headaches, anorexia nervosa, asthma, bed wetting, and panic attacks.  It has also gone a long way toward helping more physiological problems such as urinary incontinence, spinal cord injuries, seizure disorders, and diabetes.  As there are theories in both the mental and physiological camps for shy bladder, this therapy can address both.

What the Paruresis Patient Can Expect from Biofeedback

Once a paruresis patient has decided to undergo biofeedback therapy, they can expect that each session will take about an hour or less.  They may also be given “at home” exercises that they will have to do, which take about 5-10 minutes.  The frequency of sessions will depend largely on what the physician recommends; anywhere from 10 to 20 sessions per week.

Most patients who have opted for biofeedback therapy have reported improvements in their conditions after about 8-10 sessions.  After this time, the number of follow up sessions will decrease.  Another great feature of biofeedback therapy is that there is no chance of side effects as a result of treatment.

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