Anxiety management training for anxiety states: positive compared with negative self-statements.
Twelve patients complaining of chronic free-floating anxiety, usually also with panic attacks, were assigned at random to treatment by six hour-long sessions of anxiety-management training, either with positive or with negative self-statements, given over six weeks. Patients in both treatment conditions improved, with a small trend favouring positive over negative self-instruction, especially at follow-up. It is unclear how much self-instruction, rather than therapeutic attention or mere passage of time, accounted for the bulk of the modest improvement obtained.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D001346:Autosuggestion; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011617:Psychotherapy, Rational-Emotive