Table of Contents
"Modeling" techniques are used when anxiety is related to lack of confidence and the patient looks to the therapist as a model of how to handle anxiety-provoking situations. The relaxation techniques used by hypnotists and behavior therapists may prove helpful to many patients, especially those who are suggestible. In the initial stages, after therapists have instructed their patients in the various methods of relaxation, they should allow the patients to practice the methods in the office. In that way, therapists may add their encouragement and positive suggestion to their patients' efforts. The ultimate goal is to enable patients to employ the techniques alone in the course of their daily lives. Patients should not only follow a regular daily schedule of exercises, but should be encouraged to employ those exercises at any time when they are facing an anxiety-provoking situation or feel their inner tension rising. For those patients with a capacity for hypnotic trance, instruction in the techniques of self-hypnosis may potentiate the effect of the relaxation exercises. Simple forms of meditation that do not have religious implications, by reversing the processes that lead to autonomic arousal, may be effective in combating the symptoms arising from autonomic nervous system discharge. A recent study suggests that the symptoms of those individuals who have a capacity for hypnotic trance induction are particularly responsive to the use of meditative techniques.
Patients can be encouraged to try out new coping skills and emotion regulation with people they meet within support groups. They can be an important part of expanding the individual's skill set and develop new, healthier social relationships.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 1 Jun 2010
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