Anxiety management training

Domain II · Behavioural & cognitive · Richard Suinn, Frank Richardson · 1971 · Colorado State University

What it is

Anxiety management training (AMT) is a brief, relaxation-based, self-control therapy developed by Richard Suinn and Frank Richardson at Colorado State University as a faster, more general alternative to systematic desensitisation. It was built for generalised anxiety but its authors describe it as…

Format

• AMT is a short, structured skills programme, delivered individually or in groups, and in early research partly by audiotape. Two shapes are documented:
• Standard clinical course: typically about five weekly sessions of roughly an hour, with sessions repeated when a step is not yet mastered, so courses commonly run longer (6–8 is a common clinical span).

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version followed: Suinn's standard individual/group AMT as set out in Suinn (1990, Anxiety Management Training: A Behavior Therapy) and Suinn & Deffenbacher (1988), with the earlier Suinn & Richardson (1971) and Edie (1972) variants noted where they differ. The 1990 book itself was not readable online (publisher pages refused); its session-level detail below is reconstructed from opened secondary and study sources…
• Anxiety management training (AMT) is a brief, relaxation-based, self-control therapy developed by Richard Suinn and Frank Richardson at Colorado State University as a faster, more general alternative to systematic desensitisation. It was built for generalised anxiety but its authors describe it as usable wherever anxiety (and later anger and other intense emotions) is central.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Members who do not signal or who stay distressed; check individually.
• Anger clients who see relaxation as weakness; frame it as staying in control.
• Lingering distress at session end; do further relaxation before the client leaves.
• Non-practice (see 5). Working when logs show earlier detection and successful use.
• Clients who cannot find a real success (relaxation alone is the standard 1990 choice).

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.