Why Cue-controlled Relaxation Works

To many people with agoraphobia, learning to relax on cue sounds too simple to be possible. However, this technique is based upon a well-known phenomenon called “classical conditioning.” In everyday language, classical conditioning is just teaching yourself to respond to a cue in a certain way. This is done by pairing that cue with something that causes the response you want.

Need an example?

Classical conditioning emerged from an experiment done by Russian Psychologist, Ivan Pavlov, in the 1890’s. Pavlov trained a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. He did this by ringing a bell right before the dog received food. After doing this enough times, the dog started salivating at the sound of the bell because it associated the bell with food.

In the same way, you can teach yourself to relax when you say a cue word, provided you learn to associate that word with a deep state of relaxation through repeated practice.