Relaxation Therapy and High Blood Pressure

Effects of Antianxiety Agents on Relaxation Training: A Preliminary Investigation*

“…Attention-placebo control and waiting-list control groups were not used in the present study. Previous research attests to the superiority of relaxation training to nonspecific therapy (17,18,20,23). The results imply that the Relaxation Only group gained more overall benefit from relaxation training than the Medication-Relaxation group.…”

“…When those patients are 392 CANADIAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Vol. 23,No.6 instructed to tense a muscle group in the tension phase of the relaxation procedure, they might not be able to produce enough tension to appreciate what tension really means in the specific muscle group. Similarly, when they are instructed to let go of the muscle group in the release phase of the procedure, they may not be able to produce a relaxation state beyond that already established by antianxiety agents.…”

Nonpharmacologic Approaches to the Treatment of Hypertension

“…In a recent study on outpatients by Glasgow and co-workers (see above), there was no effect on clinic blood pressures, but there was an effect on home blood pressures (85). This is in contrast with the two other studies with out-patients de scribed above, in which the effect of treatment was demonstrated on clinic blood pressures (74,79).…”

“…Therefore, the nonspecifi c effects might have been smaller in the control group. A study to address this criticism was undertaken by Taylor and co-workers (74). In this study, progressive muscular relaxation was compared to nonspecific therapy and to no behavioral treatment.…”

Behavioral Interventions and Compliance to Treatment Regimes

“…Many research ers used true experimental designs with random assignment to various treatment and control groups (41,44,46,47,51,58,66). Some considered various conditions conducive to the placebo effect and attempted to control this problem by using a nonspecifi c therapy group as a comparison (45,53,55). Others utilized a no-demand phase to see if a change would take place simply as a result of being identifi ed as a study subject and to obtain a more reliable baseline measure (44,53,57).…”