I learned of this technique in the early 1970s from a paper in physiology:

It seemed then (and now) to be a simple yet elegant way of affecting a physiological and psychological change that could be of benefit to patients suffering from anxiety and panic. You can try a simplified method by putting a cold soaking wet towel over the head, forehead and face, and counting to ten.

Underlying anxiety always comes with a sense of loss of control, e.g., one’s heart rate become elevated, sometimes skyrocketing, for no reason other than the internal experience of fear whether or not external circumstances – to an outsider – justify it.

As I have always insisted with my patients, both DID and otherwise, that the best therapeutic methods guide them to find their own way forward in dealing with those issues. There is tremendous benefit to acts of positive self-empowerment. Unfortunately, my efforts faced with tremendous resistance from patients and colleagues at the time.

Doctors were supposed to prescribe medicine(s). The standard practice for patients suffering from anxiety and panic was (is) to prescribe the appropriate pharmaceutical magic bullets. At that time, those would be valium or sublingual Ativan. Any deviation from that was viewed with suspicion by both patients and doctors.

My lack of power of persuasion, in a field hijacked by pharmaceutical companies, led to my colleagues laughing at such an ‘”absurd” practice. It was suggested that I could be sued for malpractice because the laws and regulations specified that one’s treatment practice must conform to that of one’s peers. In psychiatry, anything other than prescribing physical or chemical intervention at that time was discouraged, ignored, denigrated or dismissed.

Now, many decades later, we have a rational explanation for the beneficial results of this “absurd” practice. It seems now to fall under the term “Vagal Stimulation.”

It may still take a long time to be communicated generally as an option for patients to consider trying. But, I think if I were still practicing psychiatry, I would promote this option more by highlighting its self-empowering potential. While it may not always work as effectively as we would wish, actions like this that patients can take on their own initiative have an intrinsic power to heal.