Relaxation for the treatment of headache. Controlled evaluation of two group programs.

Researchers ran a small randomized trial with adults who had chronic headache. Half joined a therapist-led relaxation group. Half got a self-help book and met once as a group to learn the same skills. A third group stayed on a wait-list.

After one month the team counted how many headaches each person still had.

Both relaxation groups beat the wait-list. Headaches dropped the same amount whether a therapist ran the sessions or people used the book alone.

The cheap self-help version worked just as well in the short term.

Andrasik et al. (2006) list relaxation as a top pick for kids’ headache pain. Baer et al. (1984) now show the same trick works for adults and can be done without a therapist.

Eugenia Gras et al. (2003) found the same pattern in parent training: group and self-directed both helped, but fewer parents finished the self-directed track. The 1984 headache study did not track who dropped out, so the two results look different yet may simply reflect missing data.

Vladescu et al. (2020) and Hanniffy et al. (2025) prove single-session BST can create very large skill jumps. Baer et al. (1984) used a similar one-shot group format and also saw large gains, showing brief group training travels well across topics.

If you run adult groups for pain or stress, you can give clients a clear choice. A $10 relaxation book plus one kick-off meeting can match weeks of therapist-led sessions at one-month follow-up. Track headaches with a simple diary and you have an evidence-backed, low-cost option ready for Monday.