ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief description of some commonly employed relaxation techniques which will be followed by a discussion of research illustrating the differences in effects elicited by practices. It discusses a typology of anxiety will be presented and relaxation techniques hypothesized to be maximally effective in reducing particular configurations of anxiety. Hypnotic suggestions of relaxation are commonly employed to reduce anxiety. Hypnotic suggestions of relaxation typically involve the active generation of cognitive behavior. One might suppose, given the important role of imagery in the hypnotic suggestion process, that individual differences in vividness of imagery should co-vary with hypnotic susceptibility. Since the primary emphasis of autogenic training is upon somatic attention and relaxation, one would predict that its effects would be similar to progressive relaxation and different from hypnotic suggestion.
