Autogenic training and signs of distress: an experimental study.

The research investigated the autogenic training (AT) effects, analyzing the emotional and somatic distress symptoms of patients during their learning of the AT standard exercises (N = 79). An improvement was observed even before the beginning of the course, thus demonstrating the Balint effect of the drug-doctor phenomenon. The control subjects, entered in a waiting list, showed no further improvements from this phase of the study; the experimental ones, who had begun their AT exercises, continued to show significant improvement.