Autogenic Therapy

One of the many therapies on offer at The Complementary Health Care Clinic, the Autogenic Technique is a powerful self-help method used by millions of people for stress relief and relaxation. It enables you to switch OFF your ‘fight or flight’ response, and switch ON your ‘rest, repair and recuperate’ healing capacities.

In Autogenic Therapy you are taught how to do this for yourself, which equips you to deal with stress independently. “Autogenic” means generated from within, or self-generated, and once learnt AT becomes a skill for life which can help to reduce stress and increase well-being. Once you have learned the technique you do not need to come back for more sessions and you don’t need any special equipment, you are entirely independent to practise it on your own. It is simply a life long personal Stress Management skill and after the initial training, you can tailor the technique to suit your own needs.

What is the Autogenic Technique?
•    It’s a very powerful stress management technique
•    It has the same benefits as meditation, but is not associated with any religion
•    It’s a set of mental exercises that can be done almost anywhere, either sitting or lying down with eyes closed
•    It’s easy to learn over about 10 weeks
•    Once learned, it’s your skill for life
•    It equips you to deal with your stress completely independently – you don’t need to keep coming back for more sessions after you’ve learned it
•    It’s very effective against anxiety, depression and stress-related illnesses
•    Millions of ordinary people use it all over the world to protect their health

What Happens in a Session?
Sandra says:  The client begins the session with a review of the past week (unless it is the first week!), telling me how they got on with the exercises I set them the previous week.  Most clients are given a worksheet to fill in every day during their training, and they show me the sheet with all the entries of their home practice sessions.  We talk about any difficulties they experienced with the exercise and how they are getting on generally and how they feel in themselves.  I then teach them the next step, which usually involves extending the exercise to include further parts of the body, accompanied by another phrase to use.  I then talk the client through the exercise.  This involves a short ‘body scan’ in which they mentally scan their body for any obvious tension and then consciously release it, and then proceed to the AT exercise itself.  The AT exercise requires them to very passively allow their awareness to rest in one body part after another, just observing their own sensations and thoughts, and repeating a phrase silently three times.  They then move on to the next body part, passively focusing on it in the same way, and repeating another phrase.  When the exercise is completed, the client ‘closes’ the exercise with a deep breath and a stretch of the arms and legs.   

After this, I then teach them one of the autogenic off-loading exercises, which are designed to allow the client to discharge excessive emotional or physical energy.  Along with this, we discuss the ways that emotions manifest themselves, how we can get ill or depressed when our feelings get stuck and how we can help to release them.  I demonstrate the off-loading exercises to the client, but the client does not do the exercise with me, s/he only does it at home on their own.  The off-loading exercises are not mandatory and are only used if the client feels they would be helpful.  Lastly, I may talk with the client about various additional stress management techniques that may be useful to them.  I then give them another worksheet for them to take home and they arrange to come back for another session the following week or fortnight.  The training takes about 10 weeks in total, and the client is required to practise at home three times a day for about ten minutes each time.

Case Study
Mr A came for Autogenic Therapy suffering from anxiety, insomnia, irritability, and feeling low.  He worked long hours in a bank, hunched over a computer terminal most of the day.  To relax, he usually had a couple of glasses of wine each evening after work and would stay up late most nights watching TV, trying to unwind.  He found it hard to get into the rhythm of practising AT at first, and often missed his home practice sessions.  However, by about the fifth week he started to get into it better.  He found that he often fell asleep in his AT, or would experience twitching in his muscles as he began to relax.  The falling asleep in the AT was a symptom of sleep-deprivation, caused by his late-night TV watching which was his previous way of trying to manage his stress.  However, as the soothing effect of the AT began to take effect after a few weeks, he found himself able to sleep better at night.  The twitching in his muscles was caused by the hunched posture he was stuck in all day, but the motor-impulse offloading exercise eased this, along with advice on how to adopt a better posture at work.  After the ten weeks of training, Mr A was no longer falling asleep in his AT; he could sleep better at night, and found that he could relax better in the evening without using alcohol.  He continued his AT practice after the course had ended and continued to experience lower levels of stress and greater feelings of well-being.

Sandra Ballester of Stress Free Norwich has worked in supportive and counselling contexts since the mid 1980’s, and her background experience includes psychiatric nursing, counselling, training for the unemployed and voluntary assistance for MIND charity. She also brings experience in Chinese philosophy and medicine which she learnt through her own self interest, together with a working knowledge of most branches of Complementary & Alternative Medicine.

Sandra herself suffered from stress-related ilnesses in the past, but these responded so well when she learned the Autogenic Technique for herself in 1999 that she decided to train in this powerful method, and graduated as a practitioner in 2002. She has been teaching ever since, and runs a busy practice in the heart of the historic Norman city of Norwich. Sandra is fully insured and is a full member of the British Autogenic Society.

Her clients range from businessmen and women, teachers, doctors, lawyers, bricklayers and students, to athletes, artists, convalescents, the disabled, housewives, teenagers and older children. Everyone has their own unique problems and the causes of stress vary greatly, but all respond to stress remarkably similarly. Sandra has also taught clients who are suffering from psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, manic-depression and conversion disorder, usually under GP supervision.

Her approach is that the most effective holistic medicine uses a combination of conventional medical care (if necessary) and alternative therapies. She fully supports any treatment that clients may be receiving from their GP or hospital, as well as any alternative therapies that clients wish to use.

Author: Georgina Fisher BSc (Hons) MTI ITEC HFR is the Practice Manager of The Complementary Health Care Clinic and acting College Registrar of The Homeopathic College of East Anglia, both found at 34 Exchange Street, Norwich, NR2 1AX. Tel 01603 665173, Web www.holistic-care.com Email georgina.fisher@holistic-care.com.
Specialising in Aromatherapy and Stress Management, Georgina offers a unique approach to stressed out individuals having grown up in the Complementary & Alternative Medicine industry, and then extensively training in its theory.