PSYCHOLOGICAL, PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICAL AND OT HER FORMS OF NONPHARMACOLOGICAL TREATMENT OF INSOMNIA - STATEMENT BY THE EXPERT GROUP ON INSOMNIAOF THE GERMAN SOCIETY OF SLEEP RESEARCH AND SLEEP MEDICINE

Psychological and psychotherapeutic techniques are an essential part o f the treatment of insomnia. Mainly two facts stress the importance of psychological/psychotherapeutical strategies for insomnia: (1) Concep ts for non-drug treatment aim at improvement of the symptoms and the u nderlying cause of the disease and (2) disadvantages of hypnotic thera py such as substance abuse or addiction are avoided. Effective treatme nt techniques such as patients education and counseling, sleep hygiene , stimulus control and relaxation techniques should be known to every therapist, especially general practitioners who treat the majority of patients haring difficulties in initiating or maintaining sleep. Sever al other effective behavioural techniques, e.g. sleep restriction, or cognitive therapy, and psychotherapy should be used only by skilled an d trained experts. Insomniacs with chronic and severe complaints shoul d be treated by therapists with experience in sleep medicine. Multimod al treatment strategies are provided for by sleep disorder centres and combine effective treatment elements in structured therapeutic concep ts. There is absolute consensus of opinion that every hypnotic treatme nt of an insomniac patient should be combined with basal elements of n on-drug treatment strategies.