Testing New Meter Electrodes

I have been looking for better electrodes for use in auditing with an e-meter for some time. The COS cans have been improved over the years but I feel they are expensive and they have been difficult to use on pcs with certain skin conditions.

Because the COS cans are made of fairly heavy metal, they also chill the hands in cold weather. Getting around this problem usually requires can heaters of some sort.

While I was getting Cardio therapy after my heart operation, I spent several months wearing stick-on EKG pads during my exercise periods and I felt there must be a commercial equivalent that I could adapt for use with a meter.

I found some reusable Electrotherapy Electrodes that are used with TENS muscle stimulators. They are hypo allergenic, latex-free, and they come in various shapes and sizes. I tried them on my arms at first, but they seemed to work better as fingertip electrodes as shown in the following illustration.

When applied to the back of your fingers, the pads flex and do not confine you in any way. I was shooting pictures using both hands and the meter did not show any disturbance from the movement of my hands.

A better way to use these pads is to apply them to the back of your hand like the example below. I found this was the most comfortable configuration so far. I audited a bed ridden pc using pads attached to the back of the pc’s hand as shown and the pc remarked that this was much easier than holding cans.

For people who have tight rings or arthritic hands, these stick-on pads take all of the concern out of generating false reads.

The pads cone in several different conductivities, so if you are concerned about the Tone Arm level, you can choose the more conductive pads. I am continuing to seek pads that provide lower TA readings. I will update this article as new information becomes available.

These pads have miniature connectors and you can purchase a cable that mates with these connectors for about $6. It is a simple matter to cut off the plug on the other end and substitute a phone plug as shown in the attached image.

The meter in the image is a pc-based Theta Meter available from the manufacturer in Moscow or from me as I am one of the US distributors for this meter. If you look at the graph, you can see the noise free tracking of needle movement. You may resize the graph or the needle dial to suit your needs. For more information about this new Theta Meter visit: http://eng.theta-meter.com/home.html

You can see the Theta meter hardware in the image below. It is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

For those who prefer solo cans, I recommend the cans produced by Hank Levin of Clarity meter. You can read about his Virtual Clarity Meter and accessories at http://clearingtech.net  

His solo cans are compact and light weight and have both connections on one end of the can assembly. It makes them very convenient to use. I generally suggest that my pcs use solo cans when I am auditing them because they are more convenient to hold and it leaves the other hand free to handle documents or anything else when needed.

Here is a trace produced on the Theta Meter when I was holding the cans in one hand and shooting pictures with the other hand. You will notice that the trace was smooth.

For those who would like more information on the Electrotherapy Pads,  here is a shot of the label. You should be aware that amazon.com offers a wide variety of pads and they are quite inexpensive.

Internet metered auditing test

This was posted by David St Lawrence on 8 June as a comment to an earlier post, Remote metering demo coming soon.

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I am testing the delivery of metered auditing now and expect that the current barriers of bandwidth and convenience will be overcome in the near future. If any auditor would like to see what it is like to conduct a remote session where the PC is on the cans and you control the session and the meter from a distance, send me an email and we’ll set up a session for testing the concept with existing software and equipment.

The best tools I have found for the process are Skype for the audio and video connection http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home, Mikogo, a free screen sharing and remote control application http://www.mikogo.com/, and the Virtual Clarity E-meter, which is a PC-based e-meter. http://www.clarity-meter.com/index.html

Everything except for the meter is free and the meter costs less than $500 US.

For the purposes of doing this test, all you need to do is to have Skype (free) and Mikogo (free) installed on your system. For maximum flexibility, install Mikogo as a Skype “Extra” so it can be invoked while you are conversing on Skype.

Auditor ability and distance auditing

This was posted by David St Lawrence on 11 March as a comment to his earlier post, Distance auditing and open source.

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fnx3 [in comment #3] brings up a very real downside of distance auditing. It requires the auditor to “be there” for the PC in spite of distance, distractions and lack of physical presence.

Not all auditors can be there for the PC when they are in the same room, so it is unreasonable to think that any auditor can be successful at distance auditing without the following abilities:

• Able to grant beingness to an extraordinary degree

• Great certainty on what they are doing

• Terrific interest in the PC and what he is doing and saying

• A flawless comm cycle and the ability to perceive what the PC is doing during the comm cycle.

• Ability to focus on the Preclear and the session to the exclusion of everything else.

If the auditor has anything going on in his universe in addition to being there with the PC, the PC will pick up on it and will be out of session to that extent.

The bottom line is that distance auditing is possible and can handle situations where physical presence is not possible, but it requires an excellent auditor who can keep the PC in session, no matter what else is going on.

I have successfully audited in a moving car when I was driving, in a classroom where roll was being called, and at a table in a busy restaurant. If the PC is truly “in session” and trusts the auditor to take responsibility for the session, the PC gets results in spite of external activities that might normally act as distractions.

In successful auditing, the auditor asks the PC to look at something and the PC looks inward to see what can be found. While he is looking, the auditor remains silent and lets him look. In order to do this successfully, the auditor has to be able to perceive what the PC is doing. His attention is on what the PC is doing and nothing else.

Many auditors cannot do this and fail to realize that the PC is aware when the auditor is not there for him. Remember the statement: Auditor plus PC is greater than the bank? It is absolutely true and I verified this once to my complete embarrassment. PC was way down the track running a long incident and I diverted my attention from what he was doing to a piece of paper behind my meter shield. Almost immediately the PC opened his eyes and stared at me in annoyance. He had detected my shift of attention…

That drove home the necessity of being there for the PC at all times. I never made that mistake again.

I have had many informal distance auditing sessions with other OTs where one of us would help the other spot and handle something by inspection. This never required commands or questions or anything but looking at the exact area of distress until everything blew. Once there was sufficient attention focused on the area, masses and ridges just blew. Here again, one had to actually be there and perceive what was going on in order to be of assistance.

I also have the feeling that creative processes may impose a higher requirement on the auditor than negative gain processes like Dianetics which suck the PC in once the process is going.

I say this because I experienced a telephone session recently that was less than satisfactory because the auditor did not have all of the abilities I listed above. My attention was, unfortunately, somewhat on the auditor and I felt that I was not being duplicated. Even though the auditor obviously wanted to help, the session did not produce the results we both wanted because of the factors I mentioned earlier.

For distance auditing to become more widely used and reliable, we need those who can do this successfully to offer coaching to those who wish to improve their skills in this area. It is no more difficult than coaching an ashtray drill successfully. It rehabilitates an OT ability when done to EP.

In summation, distance auditing is not impossible, it just requires a more highly trained auditor.

David

Distance auditing and open source

This was posted by David St Lawrence on 5 March as a comment to the iCans “About” page.

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I know there is a place for distance auditing.

I am sure that there will be more and more practitioners making use of Internet connections to help others in remote locations.

I have used the telephone to help others in trouble on OT V and have received help myself when it was not possible to get to Flag for a repair. I have used telephone non-metered auditing with non-OTs also.

Using a video setup on Skype would produce even better results as it is easier to communicate with a video link.

I hope this evolves as an “open source” effort with a minimum of attention on standardization except in the area of nomenclature. By that I mean that every promising avenue should be piloted and reported with complete data on what worked well and what problems were encountered. The names for each arrangement and for the phenomena encountered should be worked out to minimize duplicate names for different functions and phenomena.

This can be facilitated by creating open committees for discussing nomenclature, technology advances, legal ramifications, project launches and tracking of same…

With an open committee, anyone can join as long as they contribute. If a schism occurs, the easiest solution is to create an alternative committee and add it to the general list of committees. Better yet, each committee has to create its own website and develop public support by the strengths and applicability of its ideas.

We may well end up with networks of similar committees with each node linking to those other nodes which support similar goals.

David