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This randomized controlled trial investigated whether adding the psychodynamically based body-oriented psychotherapy “Functional Relaxation” (FR) to psychoeducation (PE) is more effective than PE alone to reduce stress and stress-associated complaints. Eighty-one participants with elevated stress-levels, ≥50 points on the global scale of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ), received either 10 sessions of manualized FR+PE (n=42) or 2 sessions of manualized PE alone (n=39) in a group setting. Six FR trainers took part in this study. Stress-level was the primary outcome and secondary outcomes were depression and somatization. Multilevel models for discontinuous change revealed that FR+PE was more helpful to reduce stress-levels than PE from baseline to end of intervention (t0t1) as well as from baseline to 6-months after baseline (t0t2) (both p<.05) with effect sizes (d) being medium for PE (dt0t1=.57; dt0t2=.67) and large for FR+PE (dt0t1=1.59; dt0t2=1.42). Moreover, FR+PE affected depression and somatization more positively than did PE from t0 to t1 as well as from t0 to t2 (all p<.05). Effect sizes for depression were small to medium for PE (dt0t1=.52; dt0t2=.37) and large for FR+PE (dt0t1=1.04; dt0t2=.95). Effect sizes for somatization were small for PE (dt0t1=.18; dt0t2=.19) and medium to large for FR+PE (dt0t1=.73; dt0t2=.93). In summary, the combination of FR and PE was more effective than PE alone. The results of the present trial provide first evidence that FR might be a potent component of stress interventions. Adding FR to such interventions might better help prevent clinically relevant disorders such as depression or somatization.

Two different self-help training programs (multimodal cognitive-behavioral training (CBT) and applied relaxation (AR)) presented via the Internet were compared with an educational intervention (EDU) in an RCT. Sixty-five children and adolescents (mean age: 12.7 years) with recurrent headache (at least 2 attacks per month) were each assigned to one of the three treatment conditions. The main outcome variables related to changes in headache frequency, intensity and duration as well as the responder rate (50\% reduction of headache frequency) and NNTs. Secondary outcome variables were pain catastrophizing and general well-being (depression, psychopathological symptoms and health-related quality of life). All groups showed significant reduction in headache frequency, duration and pain catastrophizing, but not in headache intensity, depression, psychopathological symptoms or health-related quality of life at post-assessment. NNTs were 2.0 for the comparison CBT and EDU; 5.2 for the comparison of AR and EDU at post-treatment. The highest responder rates at post were from CBT (63\%), significantly different compared to AR (32\%) and EDU (19\%), whereas at follow-up no significant differences were found (CBT: 63\%, AR: 56\%, EDU: 55\%) reflecting in the NNTs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)