Autogenic training is a relaxation technique first published by the German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz in 1932. The technique involves repetitions of a set of visualisations accompanied by vocal suggestions that induce a state of relaxation and is based on passive concentration of bodily perceptions like heaviness and warmth of limbs, which are facilitated by self-suggestions. Autogenic training is used to alleviate many stress-induced psychosomatic disorders. Disenchanted with psychoanalysis in the 1920s, Schultz began exploring new therapeutic methods. Collecting data about hypnosis in his research with Vogt, Schultz found that the hypnotized often felt a feeling of heaviness in the extremities, as well as a feeling of pleasant warmth.
Autogenic training was popularized in North America and the English-speaking world by Wolfgang Luthe, a German physician who worked under Schultz and investigated its effects on physical and mental health.
More recently, in 2015, biofeedback practitioners have integrated basic elements of autogenic imagery and developed simplified versions of parallel techniques used in combination with biofeedback. This was done at the Menninger Foundation by Elmer Green, Steve Fahrion, Patricia Norris, Joe Sargent, Dale Walters and others. They incorporated the hand-warming imagery of autogenic training and used it as an aid in developing thermal biofeedback.
Technique
Autogenic training can be practiced in any comfortable posture, while keeping eyes closed.
- Muscular relaxation by repetition of a verbal formula, "My right arm is heavy", emphasizing heaviness. During the initial stages of the training, the feeling of heaviness in the trained arm is more expressed and occurs more rapidly. The same feeling can be experienced in the other extremities at the same time in the other arm. Within a week, a short concentration can trigger the sensation of heaviness in a trainee's arms and legs. The same study suggested that EEG patterns obtained from subjects with different level of practice are not similar.
Another study from 1958 hypothesized that autogenic state is between the normal waking state and sleep. It suggests that EEG patterns occurring during autogenic training are similar to electrophysiological changes occurring during initial stages of sleep.
Contraindications
Autogenic training is contra-indicated for children below the age of 5 and the individuals whose symptoms cannot be controlled. finding significant positive effects of treatment when compared to normals over a number of diagnoses; finding these effects to be similar to best recommended rival therapies; and finding positive additional effects by patients, such as their perceived quality of life. Autogenic training is recommended in the 2016 European Society of Cardiology Guideline for prevention of cardiovascular disease in persons who experience psychosocial problems. The International Journal of Dermatology conducted a study and found that Autogenic Training was potentially helpful for improving aged skin in women experiencing menopause.
Compared to other relaxation techniques
The principle of passive concentration in autogenic training makes this technique different from other relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation and biofeedback, in which trainees try to control physiological functions. As in biofeedback, bidirectional change in physiological activity is possible. Autogenic training is classified as a self-hypnotic technique. It is different from hetero-hypnosis, where trance is induced by another individual. Autogenic training emphasizes a trainee's independence and gives control from therapist to the trainee. By this, the need for physiological feedback devices or a hypnotherapist is eliminated.