What is sophrology?

Where it comes from

Sophrology began in 1960 at the Santa Isabel hospital in Madrid, in Professor López Ibor's neuropsychiatry ward. Its founder, Professor Alfonso Caycedo, a Colombian neuropsychiatrist, was looking for a way to study consciousness that did not rely on the heavy treatments of his time. He built the word from Greek: the study of consciousness in harmony.

Over the following years Caycedo travelled to India, Tibet and Japan. He brought back three inspirations — yoga, Tibetan meditation, Zen — recast in Western language, and they became the first three degrees of dynamic relaxation. The method then took the shape of a school, Caycedian sophrology, protected since 1992 and still overseen by the Alfonso Caycedo Foundation. Sophria follows that school: the sessions are written and reviewed with a certified sophrologist.

What it is, and what it is not

A session is practiced seated, standing or lying down, usually with the eyes closed, in a state of ease that sophrologists call the sophroliminal level — somewhere between ordinary wakefulness and sleep. You hear everything, you remember everything, and you open your eyes whenever you decide to. The voice offers; it never commands.

• It is not hypnosis

  Hypnosis works through suggestion and an altered state of consciousness. Sophrology stays in full awareness: you keep the lead from beginning to end, and nothing is slipped in without your knowing.

• It is not meditation

  Meditation observes, with no particular intent. Sophrology is structured and directed: every session has a beginning, a middle and an end, and alternates release with gentle movement.

• It is not background sound

  Ease is a means, not the destination. What matters is what you perceive during the session — the house word is « vivance » — and the silence that lets it settle.

• It is not care

  Nothing offered here replaces medical advice, a diagnosis or a treatment. It is a complementary wellness practice, and nothing more.

The anatomy of a session, in six phases

Every Sophria session follows the same frame. It comes from practice in the consulting room, and it is what separates a session from a merely soothing recording.

1. Settling in

   A few sentences to arrive, to know what is coming, and to be reminded that you can open your eyes at any moment.

2. Sophronisation

   The way down: attention travels through the body from the head towards the legs, and each area releases what it can release.

3. Activation

   The heart of the session: a dynamic relaxation exercise, slow breathing or guided imagery, depending on the day's intent.

4. Integration pause

   A real silence, with no voice, to let what has just been lived settle. It is not dead air: it is a phase.

5. Desophronisation

   The way back, in reverse order: legs, back, shoulders, face, then the eyes — you never leave a session half awake.

6. Phenodescription and close

   A last moment to name, for yourself only, what was perceived. Nothing to achieve, nothing to report to anyone.

Desophronisation is not a comfort at the end of the tape: it is what tells a sophrology session apart from a recording made to send you to sleep. The only sessions that do not come back up are those in the Sleep collection — written to let you drift off, and saying so.

The four degrees of the fundamental cycle

Caycedo's dynamic relaxation has twelve degrees across three cycles. Sophria offers the first of them, the fundamental cycle: four degrees, nine sessions each, taken in order. Each degree takes time — in the consulting room, one to three months per degree is the usual pace.

1. First degree — the body

   Discovering the presence of the body, its shape, its points of contact. Inspiration: yoga.

2. Second degree — the mind

   Contemplating mental activity without following it, and the space within. Inspiration: Tibetan meditation.

3. Third degree — body and mind meeting

   Living both as a single whole, in three dimensions. Inspiration: Zen.

4. Fourth degree — values

   Bringing into the open what matters to you, and finding it again in the body.

Before any of that comes the Discovery journey: twenty-one days, one short session a day, to build the habit before entering the cycle. It does not replace the first degree, it leads into it — and it is the most honest way to find out whether the method suits you.

What the research says

We would rather say it plainly: sophrology taken as a whole rests on a thin, low-quality evidence base. The trials that test it as a package are few, often small, sometimes authored by the people who teach it. The largest recent trial, SOPHROCARE (200 participants, 2026), had a negative primary endpoint. We build nothing on that.

What does hold up are its components, taken separately — and they are in every session.

• Slow breathing with the exhale longer than the inhale: a measured short-term effect on vagal tone and mood, and five minutes is enough. Moderate to strong evidence for that immediate effect, moderate only for lasting benefit.
• Progressive muscle relaxation: an honest effect on anxiety of around d ≈ 0.5 — not the spectacular effect sizes of heterogeneous meta-analyses. Moderate evidence.
• Guided imagery: an effect on pre-procedure anxiety of around d ≈ 0.64. Moderate evidence, in that specific context.
• App-delivered mind-body practice — the body of work closest to what we actually do: 56 trials, 7,691 participants (2024), modest but real effects on anxiety and depression, around 0.3. Modest, not transformative.

Three things we will not say. That sophrology treats anything: it accompanies. That it beats meditation or paced breathing: no head-to-head trial exists. That sleep is solved by relaxation: for insomnia, cognitive behavioural therapy remains first-line care, and what we offer is a complement.

What the literature does show clearly: consistency matters more than length. Four to seven days a week changes the trajectory more than one long session now and then. That is why the catalog starts with three-to-ten-minute formats.

Wellness, not care

Sophrology is neither psychotherapy nor a medical act, and an app does not replace human support where human support is what is needed.

A few simple limits. Do not practice while driving, or while doing anything else that needs your attention. If a session brings up an emotion that is too strong, stop it and open your eyes: that is expected, and it is not a failure. With an unstabilised psychiatric condition, ask a health professional before starting deep relaxation. Pregnant, in chronic pain, or on medication: talk to your doctor or your midwife.

Sessions are written by our team with a certified sophrologist and listened to in full before publication. The voice carrying them is synthetic: we would rather say so everywhere than let you work it out.

Sophrology is a complementary wellness method. It does not replace a medical diagnosis or treatment.