I tracked some vocals this week and had to use an old technique that just makes me laugh thinking about it. We were tracking vocals and I just couldn't get the singer to really let go. It's a straight up rock band, I've seen them live a bunch of times and they are awesome. In the studio, I think the atmosphere and tension of the situation really got to the guy.
Well, in cases like these, I usually ask the singer to grab his instrument and put it on like at a show. In this case, it was a guitar.
It's amazing how psychological just holding on to a guitar is to a singer. The guy sang awesome after that.
Any other weird psychological techniques like this out there???