Table of Contents "Modeling" techniques are used when anxiety is
related to lack of confidence and the patient looks to the
therapist as a model of how to handle anxiety-provoking
situations. The relaxation techniques used by hypnotists and
behavior therapists may prove helpful to many patients,
especially those who are suggestible. In the initial stages,
after therapists have instructed their patients in the various
methods of relaxation, they should allow the patients to
practice the methods in the office. In that way, therapists may
add their encouragement and positive suggestion to their
patients' efforts. The ultimate goal is to enable patients to
employ the techniques alone in the course of their daily lives.
Patients should not only follow a regular daily schedule of
exercises, but should be encouraged to employ those exercises at
any time when they are facing an anxiety-provoking situation or
feel their inner tension rising. For those patients with a
capacity for hypnotic trance, instruction in the te