[Behavioral approach to stress and anxiety and the management of stress].

Prior to a study of stress and anxiety, an operational definition of these concepts appears to be essential. The correlative analysis of the three system responses (verbal-cognitive, motor and physiological) as proposed by Peter Lang seems to be promising. To day, a relative independence among these responses has been established. Moreover, the quality of the responses seems to depend on typological differences and on cognitive mechanisms, i.e. the acquired notion of controllability of the stressful situation. These recent results give further evidence to a more accurate use of psychotropic drugs in the behavior therapy of stress and anxiety reactions.