[1] In 2019, some of the works of Maticek and his co-author, psychologist Hans Eysenck, were reviewed by King's College London and 26 were declared "unsafe".

Type IV: Good self-regulation: Orientation towards current objects that enable subjective well-being, pleasure and security through which a sense of purpose can be experienced.

In this autonomy training, a special form of cognitive behavioral therapy, the ability to achieve well-being, pleasure, security, and fulfilment of meaning through self-active problem solving is strengthened in conversation.

[12] Grossarth uses the term "autonomy" in the sense of an inner independence from objects with negative experienced consequences, which results from self-knowledge and redesign of communication.

Self-regulation includes the personal ability to create the conditions for pleasure, well-being, security and inner balance through one's own behaviour in interpersonal relationships.

[13] In 2001 Grossarth-Maticek had this protected under trademark law under the term Autonomietraining Gesundheit und Problemlösung durch Anregung der Selbstregulation.

[14] The statistically average life-prolonging effect of autonomy training in cancer patients demonstrated in the Heidelberg prospective study cannot be interpreted in such a way that autonomy training is a method with which permanent healing can be achieved in any case, but the results show that the improvement of self-regulation is one of the factors that contribute to an improvement in the function of the immune system[15] e.g. by changes in behaviour with regard to habits that are harmful to or promote health, stress reduction and increase in subjective well-being.

[20][21] Based on Grossarth-Maticek's autonomy training and the effects on salutogenesis, Dierk Petzold, a physician and lecturer for general medicine at the Hannover Medical School, developed the concept of salutogenic communication.

[22] Jun Nagano and his team from the Institute of Health Sciences at University Kyūshū carried out control studies on the correlation between the behavioral types distinguished by Grossarth and the frequency of certain diseases, as well as on the effectiveness of autonomy training.

As part of a collaboration between the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine of the University Kyūshū and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Japanese physicians and other scientists, led by Jun Nagano, participated in two academic conferences at the Center for Multidisciplinary Research (Zentrum für multidisziplinäre Forschung ZMF) and founded the Japan Autonomy Training Association.

[34][35] Roderick D. Buchanan argued that Grossarth, who had "come a long way from ... war-torn Yugoslavia" was "living in a fine house overlooking the Heidelberg Castle in Germany on the steep embankments of the Neckar river" (in the neighbourhood of the Helm Stierlin-Institute[36][37][38]) and that “a few thought him a visionary, but many distrusted him,” and that in 1977 when he presented his 100-page manuscript about the longitudinal research programme he had started in 1973 for the purpose of his habilitation to the University of Heidelberg Psychology Department "according to (Manfred) Amelang, the document was rejected largely, because the claims made were so extraordinary".

In an article published in 2019 in the Journal of Health Psychology, Anthony J. Pelosi and David F. Marks requested a review of some these works Grossarth-Maticek had coauthored with Eysenck.

This led to an inquiry by King's College London, which described the work as "incompatible with modern clinical science", and described 25 of the co-authored papers as "unsafe".