French Psychologist

Paul Reise: Contributing Editor

Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion

We are what we tell ourselves we are. When we are talking to ourselves, we are talking to our subconscious mind. If I continuously tell myself I am stupid, unworthy, and ugly, then I am placing these ideas into my subconscious and making it believe these ideas are true. They become a confirmation. Imagine what happens if I focus my subconscious mind on positive outcomes? I can shape my own destiny and achieve marvelous success and happiness… This is called “autosuggestion”.

The concept is not new. Emile Coue, born in 1857 and author of the book “Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion”, was a French psychologist and pharmacist, who pioneered self-improvement through optimistic self talk and autosuggestion. Whilst believing in the benefits of medication, he found that patients often fared better when he emphasized the likelihood of success. Émile Coue became known for writing positive notes that accompanied the prescriptions. By doing so he helped many people to develop their inner strength. The patients expected the medicine to work and this became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

His approach became increasingly popular from the 1920s onwards. Émile Coue encouraged people to plant positive seeds in their minds, rather than negative ones. He believed in the power of imagination to envisage and achieve success: “When the imagination and will power are in conflict, are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, without any exception.”

The law of autosuggestion is simple: you believe what you repeatedly feed your mind. If your self-talk is negative (“Bad things always happen to me.”) then your results will most likely be negative as well. A continuous focus on a positive image (“We will produce our debut album in Los Angeles and share our own songs through our band RoMi Cage.”) will become part of the subconscious and channel the energy towards achieving the desired goal. Whenever attention is concentrated on an idea over and over again, it spontaneously tends to realize itself. In the above example RoMi Cage were reprogramming them-selves to a positive outcome which increased their chances to success significantly.