The next international meeting is scheduled for 2001. Jacobson modeled the title after the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The general purpose of the association is to facilitate the acquisition and dissemination of scientific knowledge about tension control, with emphasis on technological applications for the benefit of society throughout the world. The public is encouraged to use only relaxation approaches that satisfy the highest criteria of scientific and clinical validation. Principally, validation of a method is that it reduces muscle tension electromyographically measured, using sound methodology.
Clinical validation is that as muscle tension is reduced, complaints are alienated or eliminated.
Electromyography is a major tool because the classical, standard definition of tension is the contraction of striated muscle fibers just as relaxation is their elongation. There were no set requirements for membership, such as a minimal level of academic degree or field of specialization. The first meeting of the association was held at the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago in 1974. Annual meetings continued to be held at the Bismarck Hotel in Chicago through 1978. In 1979 the Association sponsored its first international conference organized primarily by Joe MacDonald Wallace, Director for Europe, at the West London Institute of Higher Education.