Acute or abnormal anxiety is manifested in that particular muscular system which from childhood on has been used for the expression of 'normal' anxiety reactions. The patterns (skeletal, smooth or combined) remain dominant; overflow into another system may occur but is temporary. Also, the focusing of attention on one particular aspect of the pattern may conceal manifestations in other areas.

The complaints of forty-seven patients with tensional and anxiety states were carefully registered and an obvious relationship between pattern and acute symptoms was found. In an elaborate and interesting discussion of the involvement of the skeletal musculature, it is noticed that though much attention is paid to increase of knee jerks, the majority of complaints point to differences of muscle tonus in the more expressive areas (head and hands). Cameron stresses the importance of the study of the actual complaints and these lifelong patterns in anxiety states, along with the 'equally desirable search for etiological factors'.