'Émile Coué' (
February 26,
1857 –
July 2,
1926) was a
French psychologist and
pharmacist who introduced a method of
psychotherapy, healing, and self-improvement based on
optimistic autosuggestion.
The application of his famous
conscious autosuggestion, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" (''Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux''), is what is often called 'Couéism' or the 'Coué method'.
The Coué method depended on the routine repetition of such expressions, according to a specified ritual, at the beginning and the ending of each day.
Life and career
Coué was born in
Troyes, France and came from old
noble Breton stock. He originally trained as a pharmacist, he was considered a brilliant student and graduated in 1876. He learned hypnosis from
Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, the founder of
Nancy School, and in
1913 Coué founded the Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology.
Coué noticed that in certain instances he could improve the efficacy of a medicine simply by praising its effectiveness to the patient. He realized that those patients to whom he praised the medicine had a marked improvement over those patients to whom he said nothing. This began Coué’s exploration of the use of hypnosis and the power of the imagination. Along with his wife, Nancy Lemorine, he went on to found the Nancy School of Hypnosis.
Initially he used hypnotism to cure the patients. He discovered subjects could not be hypnotised against their will, and more importantly the affects of hypnotism waned when the subjects gained consciousness. So he turned to autosuggestion.
Autosuggestion
By using autosuggestion consciously he observed that the subjects could cure themselves by replacing in their mind "thought of illness" with "thought of cure". By consciously repeating words or images as self-suggestion to the
subconscious mind, according to Coué, one can order one's mind to obey them.
His book, ''Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion'', caused a sensation on its publication in England (
1920) and in the United States (
1922).
Although Coué’s teachings during his lifetime were more popular in Europe than in the United States, many who adopted his teachings in America went on to become famous themselves for spreading the ‘gospel’ of his words. Notably,
Norman Vincent Peale,
Robert Shuler,
W. Clement Stone and others.
He died in
Nancy, France in 1926.
Effect of Coué's method
Using his so-called method ( which he called a ''trick'') his patients of all sorts would get spectacular cures. In fact one Englishman, C. Harry Brooks who visited him claimed the success rate was around 93%. The remaining 7% of people would include those who were skeptical of Coué's trick and would not like to understand it and people who could not understand Coué's words possibly due to mental retardation.
The cures achieved by Coué's patients seems to be unbelievable, however Coué always clearly explained to the visitors that he possessed no powers and the power lay within themselves.
As Coué put it, "Autosuggestion is a weapon that one must learn to use. It's like a double-edged sword which when learned to use properly, one can save one's life, or otherwise end up injuring or killing oneself."
His unique discovery was that willpower is the biggest obstacle in any cure. The cures were the result of using imagination or "positive autosuggestion" to the exclusion of one's willpower.
The first patient he addressed was a frail, middle aged man with a bad case of nervous trouble. ... Coue encouraged him with the promise of improvement. "You have been sowing bad seed in your unconscious; now you will have to sow good seed. The power by which you have produced these ill effects will in future produce equally good ones".
The next patient was an excitable, overworked woman. When Coue inquired as to the nature of her trouble, she broke into a flood of complaint, describing each symptom with a voluble minuteness. "Madam," he interrupted, "you think too much about your ailments, and in thinking of them you create fresh ones."[1]
Patients of all sorts would visit him. The list of maladies included kidney problems, diabetes, memory loss, stammering, weakness, atrophy and all sorts of physical and mental illnesses.
Émile Coué's imprint on the modern world
It might be surprising to find that the work of Émile Coué is often overlooked, even though his method did wonders to the patients who would come to him at Nancy. There is hardly any information available on the Internet which can enlighten a person looking for information related to Coué. Most of the information available is regards his "magic mantra", but fails to explain the magic behind the mantra or the results Coué found using his method.
Patients would come to Coué for cure, and be treated free of charge. Before coming they would have heard about his magical cures and most patients came with receptive and open minds. Coué always spoke to his subjects in commanding tone, not giving them a chance to think about what they were told, and it required a receptive mind to be effected by Coué's techniques. Patients would wait and watch in queue while Coué continued with his experiments and explanations. Many patients would achieve immediate partial success. A person living in morbid fear of death was smiling, laughing. A person with severe weakness was now found running in the garden.
Basics of Coué's so-called "trick"
The basis of Émile Coué's method is the following (scientific) principle: '"Any idea exclusively occupying the mind turns into reality"';
but only if the idea is within the realms of possibility. If a person without a hand thinks that his hand will grow – obviously this won't happen.
If a person thinks that their Asthma is fast disappearing – it happens, limited only by how fast the body can cure it.
If a person thinks they can't remember a name, then as long as they hold onto this idea in their mind, it will be just impossible to remember the name.
Coué's trick is extremely simple. Delving into the reality of his method soon shows that it's the simplest thing in the world. How simple is it to say "How I would like to taste delicious mango"? What idea does it create in the mind? If you instead think about tasting lemon what do you feel? To explain it this way, suppose a horse rider does not have the reins in his or her hands, what happens? The horse takes the rider wherever it wants. Then what happens if the horse runs away? The same thing happens with us. We have a conscious mind (the Conscious) and an unconscious mind (the Unconscious) or a body. The body is just like a horse. If we don't have reins the body runs wherever it wants.
To control it we must have control over the reins. Only then can we make our Unconscious or body to do what we want.
Willpower
Coué observed that the biggest roadblock to autosuggestion or learning his so called "trick" is nothing else but
willpower. The use of will power must be absolutely done away with, otherwise the law of reversed affect creeps in and one gets the opposite of what is desired.
Parallel this with a students who has forgotten answer of a question in the exam. What's the idea in his or her mind? "I have forgotten the answer". Now as long as he or she has this idea in the mind he or she can't recollect it. The more he tries the more the answer flees. Let him jump or do anything. The more he says I want the more the answer vanishes away. If the thought is changed to "It will come back to me" the answer is more likely to come.
C. Harry Brooks puts it in another way : "Idea in the mind is inversly proportional to the square of will power". This applies when both are in opposite directions. When will power is used in line with the idea in the mind, then both get multiplied.
Children always grasped his "trick" at once. "Clasp your hand and you can't open them" Coué would instruct a child, and immediately he or she would follow. It's because lack of will power in them.
Self conflict
This can be described as conflict between willpower and the idea in the mind. You try to sleep. But you become more awake. Or you want to sleep, but you find harder to sleep. This is called "Conflict within ourselves". In short, doing away with willpower altogether or using Coué's so- called "trick" will bring peace and confidence within oneself.
Medicines and autosuggestion
The use of autosuggestion is intended to complement use of medicine, but no medication of Coué's time could save a patient from depression or tension. Coué recommended that patients take medicines such as antibiotics with the confidence that they would be completely cured very soon — and healing would be optimal. Conversely, he contended, patients who are skeptical of a medicine would find it least effective.
In popular culture
★
John Lennon included the Coué mantra in his lyrics for "
Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" on the album ''
Double Fantasy''.
★ Artist
Sandy Smith has used variations of the original Coué mantra in much of his work, most noticeably in the installation "''All the time I was making this I was thinking of you''"
References
★ C. Harry Brooks, ''How to use Autosuggestion by the Method of Émile Coué'', George Allen and Unwin 1922
★ Émile Coué, ''How to Practice Suggestion and Autosuggestion''
★ Émile Coué, ''My Method: Including American Impressions''
★ Émile Coué, ''Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion''
★ Napoleon Hill,''
Think and Grow Rich''
★ Émile Coué, ''La maîtrise de soi-même par l'autosuggestion consciente'' (Autrefois: ''De la suggestion et de ses applications''), Société Lorraine de psychologie appliquée (1922) (
full text in French from Wikisource)
External links
★
[1] French text of speech: ''La Maîtrise de soi-même''
★
[2] ''Find-A-Grave'' profile for Émile Coué
★
[3] English text of Coué's (1922) ''Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion''
★
Summary of the Laws of Suggestion
★
IMDB entry
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