ABSTRACT
Pediatric dentists have suggested several behavioral techniques for alleviating anxiety of children in their clinic. Dentists usually cope with this anxiety by administering drugs producing sedation, analgesia or anaesthesia. It is safer and of much greater benefit to the patient, particularly when the patient is a child, to enjoy psychological techniques to train him to be rational about the treatment. In emotive-cognitive imagery, the patient is encouraged to experience imaginatively relaxing situations, instead of, or coupled with muscle relaxation. It has been demonstrated that some dentists use humor consistently within the systematic desensitization model. They supply cues to create humor sets. They present anxiety producing stimuli gradually following the Tell-Show-Do model in conjunction with humorous incongruities and bisociation. Humor, trivial as it seems, when used with regard to patient's needs can serve as a useful and inexpensive method for controlling anxiety and achieving better cooperation with the patients.
