Overview

Autogenic training (AT) is a relaxation technique developed by German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz and was first published in 1932. Since that time, it has been widely used in clinical practice and research to foster the mind’s ability to produce relaxation in the body. Autogenic means self-generating, or produced from within. This reflects the ability to self-produce a relaxed feeling of warmth and heaviness throughout the body by saying various verbal phrases aimed at encouraging a state of physical relaxation and emotional calm. It is considered a form of self-hypnosis and is used to increase relaxation and restore balance in the body. It is a technique often recommended when a health issue is present and when stress is a contributing factor to producing or maintaining health issues.¹

What It Is

AT involves learning specific phrases that are repeated several times as silent thoughts to oneself. These phrases are performed in a detached way to encourage the body to produce a relaxed feeling of warmth, heaviness, and emotional calm. The core of AT is standard exercises that focus on six physical manifestations of relaxation in the body:

1. Heaviness in the musculoskeletal system
2. Warmth in the circulatory system
3. Awareness of the heartbeat
4. Slowing down the breath
5. Relaxing the abdomen
6. Cooling the forehead

Exercises are built up weekly, in sequential order, starting with relaxing the peripheral extremities, then later adding practice with regulating the heart and circulatory system. Relaxing the respiratory system comes next and is followed by a focus on the visceral organs (the solar plexus area), and then, cooling the forehead. There is a final phase of feeling overall peace in the mind and body.