Progressive Muscle Relaxation: The Oldest Counselling Strategy?

For many years I have been teaching people to use Progressive Muscle Relaxation, which might just be the oldest strategy used in counselling.  Like 1908 old.

OK, so I have not published a blog post in two years (less one day.)  I’m not even going to try to make this post flow seamlessly from what I was discussing back then.  Let’s just get this thing going again!  I’m picking the first thing which came to mind to talk about.

 

So how do I know Progressive Muscle Relaxation is the oldest strategy in psychotherapy?  Well, I don’t.  Not with 100% certainty.  Unsurprisingly, there’s some debate on when psychotherapy or counselling – I use the names interchangeably, which is not technically correct but I don’t care and that’s also a topic for another time – began.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s go with homeboys Freud and Breuer writing a paper in 1895.

 

Point is, Progressive Muscle Relaxation (or PMR, as everything must have an acronym in my field) was there almost from the beginning.  I have a strong feeling that you’re not going to find any other strategy in the counselling and psychotherapy world, which is that old and still used pervasively.

When I say “strategy,” I’m talking about some kind of procedure – something one can do – which a person learns in counselling and then practices out in the real world, for some kind of benefit.  I’m not talking about strategies which therapists use in the course of providing counselling.  These would include foundational practices like listening well and conveying respect; which were happening long before 1908, 1895, or for that matter 1643.  (FYI, I made that date up.)

I’m talking about the tips and tricks which are featured on Tik Tok and Instagram.  I’m talking about a specific set of portable skills.  Actions you can take and thoughts you can think which form a kind of do-these-steps-and-feel-better ritual.  For example, here’s a YouTube video claiming that if you use the tools taught, “You will NEVER feel stressed again.“

There is an understandable appeal to strategies.  Learning to do something can give a sense of hope.  “Aha!  Now I know what to do, to make myself feel better!”  When you have been trying to solve some kind of personal problem, and nothing seems to have helped, it makes sense to want to learn a strategy which is new and shiny and is supposed to make you feel better.  Because feeling better… feels better.

Counselling, like other professions (I guessing; I’ve never worked in another profession) has its trends and fads.  New strategies come along with great fanfare and catchy slogans often featuring terms like “game-changing” and “revolutionary.”

 

Twenty years later, many of them are all but forgotten.

 

I have reached an age where this is no longer something I read about, but something I have watched happen.  Many times.  Hmph.  Enough about that.

Then there is Progressive Muscle Relaxation.  Good ol’ PMR!  Let’s do some math here.

                   How many years since PMR got rolling?          2023 – 1908  =  115.

Look at that!  PMR has been used way longer than twenty years!  Not only has it outlasted a ton of glittery upstart strategies, but as far as I can tell it is now more widely known and extensively practiced than ever.

That tells us something, in my ever-so humble opinion.  PMR is not “flavour of the month.”  It has stood the test of time.  Over the course of generations it has demonstrated its value.

Uh oh.  This is starting to sound a bit catchy-slogan-ish.

Not to worry.  I won’t be calling it game-changing or revolutionary.  PMR does not magically produce happily-ever-after, I’m afraid.  But it does provide some solid benefits.  It is helpful enough that many, many test drives over the last hundred and fifteen years have yielded enough satisfied customers to avoid PMR landing in the great dumpster of history.  Don’t take my word for it; take it for a test drive yourself.

Oh, wait.  I didn’t explain how to do so.

So here’s the deal.  As I mentioned above, I’ve neglected my poor blog for a long time.  Shame on me.  I tried the YouTube thing, and… yeah. I’m no influencer.  It’s time to kick-start my blog back into action.  I’ll need to post some things.

My devious plan involves expounding the virtues of PMR, then cleverly providing no information on how to do it.  That way, you’ll have to tune in to my next blog post to learn the details.  Insert diabolical laughter.

 

Or I suppose you could do a quick google search on PMR and forget all about my blog.  Sigh.  The Internet has really messed up manipulation through rationed dispensation of information, don’t you find?

 

Ah well.  I hear AI can now write anything you want.  Maybe I should figure out how to use it, to crank out blog posts for world domination…

 

Kidding!  I like writing.  Why would I want some AI to have all the fun?