BREATHING RETRAINING IN THE TREATMENT OF HYPERVENTILATORY COMPLAINTS AND PANIC DISORDER - A REPLY

The first PurPose of the present article is to provide an adjoiner to Garssen, de Ruiter, and van Dyck's 1992 review of studies which suppor t the therapeutic effects of breathing retraining in the treatment of hyperventilatory complaints in general and panic disorder in particula r. The article focuses on the results and the methodology of a selecti on of relevant studies for the purpose of bringing attention to detail s which aid in the interpretation of data as they pertain to the effic acy of breathing retraining. The second purpose is to provide a critic al examination of two studies which led Garssen et al. (1992) to quest ion the rationale underlying breathing retraining and suggest that it might be a ''rational placebo. '' The conclusion reached following the critical examination was that, while it cannot be proven that breathi ng retraining is not a ''rational placebo,'' there is neither an empir ical nor logical basis for questioning the rationale.