Technique of Relaxation: Self-Relaxation

The authors offer a brief description of a psychotherapeutic method calledTechnique of Relaxation: Self-Relaxationas it has been practiced to their own satisfaction at the Medical Clinic of Jena in Thuringia. The core of the therapy amounts to verbal (symbolic?) control over autonomous organic function. The basic premise of such treatment, which avoids insight as well as drugs, appears to be related to J. H. Schultz'sAutogenic Training. Yet in a footnote to the preface of their first edition, the authors remark that "At the request of the Publishers, Georg Thieme, Stuttgart, who were anxious that there should be a distinction from the work of J. H. Schultz, we avoided the words 'Autogenes Training' in our title." To accomplish the results, the method seems to rely on the gradual absorption of verbal suggestions given by the doctor to individuals and to groups with the intention