Autosuggestion

AUTOSUGGESTION (autosuggestio), suggestion (see), the subject and object of which are united in one person. There is no sharp boundary between autosuggestion and suggestion coming from another person; in order to be effective, the suggestive impulse must not only be perceived but also processed by the person receiving the suggestion, and the process of processing by no means remains passive, but is carried out thanks to the corresponding attitude of this person—in other words, suggestion, from the moment it reaches the personality that is its object, must, in order to be effective, be accompanied by autosuggestion. On the other hand, there is no pure autosuggestion without external influence on the personality; the source of the suggestive process in autosuggestion is always one or another factors existing outside the personality. The role of autosuggestion in mental life is enormous. In medical psychology, its importance is determined by the fact that it can both cause and eliminate pathological phenomena. The process of autosuggestion never remains a simple logical implantation into consciousness of one or another proposition, but necessarily includes as its driving force affective components. A whole series of sensory and motor disorders (pain, paralysis, spasms, convulsions, etc.) and syndromes (hypochondriacal states) can be the result of autosuggestion caused by fear of their possible occurrence. Fear of failure of suggestion made by another person or of a method of treatment applied, partially based on indirect suggestion, can paralyze their action. On the contrary, many hysterical symptoms arise from autosuggestion conditioned by the desire (fully or partially unconscious) to attract attention to oneself by pathological phenomena. Autosuggestion has been used as a therapeutic factor in psychotherapy. The drawback of the 'development of will' psychotherapeutic method developed by Lewy and based on autosuggestion is its abstractness and the tendency to use almost exclusively the impact on the psyche of logical arguments. Greater success was achieved in certain circles by the autosuggestion technique proposed by the French pharmacist Coué. It consists of two consecutive procedures: 1) a series of simple psychological experiments showing that the direction of a person's thoughts can not only have an influence on their behavior consciously perceived by them, but also cause actions on their part not noticed at all (e.g., a subject's tense representation of a circle causes a circular movement of an object suspended on a thread held by their hand), and 2) systematic exercises in autosuggestion by repeating aloud while observing a special ritual propositions containing indications for the changes to be effected in the state of the organism. Coué and his follower Boudon by applying this technique managed to achieve in a number of cases very significant therapeutic results. Recently, a special psychotherapy method based on autosuggestion, called the 'autogenic training' method, was proposed by the famous German psychotherapist Schultz. He developed a system of 'physiologically rational' exercises, by means of which the patient can themselves achieve a therapeutic switching of their personality to a healthy attitude. This switching is based on the paradoxical technique of 'spontaneously inducing' passivity. This technique consists of the patient achieving self-immersion into brief light hypnotic states. In such states, they can achieve significant calming, elimination of pain, etc. Schultz also attaches great importance to the special imaginative contemplation achieved at higher stages of such autohypnosis, which helps the patient understand their pathological condition and find ways to free themselves from it. Schultz's technique bears clear traces of quietistic and mystical tendencies of Buddhism, from which it is basically borrowed, and cannot find significant application in Soviet psychotherapy. In general, however, treatment methods based on autosuggestion should occupy a prominent place with us. However, they should be supplemented and corrected by other psychotherapeutic methods, especially those based on the health-improving effect of the collective on the personality (see Psychotherapy).