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Concept
Autogenic training
Summary
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.
Autogenic training (AT) was first presented by German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz in 1926 to the Medical Society in Berlin. Disenchanted with psychoanalysis in the 1920s, Schultz began exploring new therapeutic methods. His search was heavily influenced by his experience with German neurologist Oscar Vogt, with whom he researched sleep and hypnosis. 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. Interested by this relationship, Schultz investigated whether imagining such heaviness and warmth in the limbs could lead to self-hypnosis. Under his guidance, Schultz's patients were able to go into a hypnotic state for a self-determined period of time by simply imagining a state of heaviness and warmth in one's limbs. These short-term mental exercises appeared to reduce stress or effects such as fatigue and tension while avoiding side effects such as headaches. Inspired by this research and Vogt's work, Johannes Heinrich Schultz became interested in the phenomenon of autosuggestion. He wanted to explore an approach to relaxation, which would avoid undesirable passivity of the patients and dependency on the therapist. To this end, Schultz developed a set of six exercises called autogenic training.
Autogenic training was popularized in North America and the English-speaking world by Wolfgang Luthe, a German physician, who worked under Schultz and investigated the effects of autogenic training on physical and mental health issues.
Official source
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