`The Running Treatment': A Preliminary Communication on a New Use for an Old Therapy (Physical Activity) in the Agoraphobic Syndrome

¹ Consultant in Charge, Regional Behaviour Research Unit, Hollymoor Clinic, Hollymoor Hospital, Northfield, Birmingham 31 5EX and Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Birmingham

Eight patients suffering from agoraphobia were successfully treated by a new method involving running. The method was derived from Respiratory Relief treatments of simple phobia, where the relief on breathing after prolonged breath-holding is temporally associated with the phobic anxiety, causing inhibition of the latter.

Patients were treated almost exclusively by nursing staff. Having developed marked breathlessness through running they entered an area or approached a situation (`anxiety zone') in which anxiety was normally aroused and were then required to walk until anxiety was manifest, when they withdrew and repeated the procedure up to that point. A variant was to make them run right through an `anxiety zone', and then to repeat this at gradually reducing pace.

Their anxiety was successfully inhibited, and it was assumed that this occurred because:

(1) An instinctive response to anxiety, that is rapid, forceful action, was used to control it.

(2) The ongoing autonomic excitation caused by vigorous physical exertion competed with and inhibited the anxiety reaction, allowing appreciation of the environment without awareness of fear.

(3) If any autonomic component of the anxiety reaction could be detected it would be cognitively labelled as part of the body's response to physical exercise.

The technique was simple to use and allowed deployment of nursing staff, a welfare officer, and spouses. It did not prevent relapse from ongoing emotional problems, for example, marital difficulties.

Further experience and controlled trials are necessary to establish its full value.