Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-06-13
COUE'S TEACHINGS
Bv H. Addington Bruce

~ o far as suggestion" is potent to affect
the health, it is always through "self-
~ suggestion that it affects it. This
means that the sick in many cases can lit
orally heal themselves by insistently and re-
ceptively impressing upon their minds cura-
tive ideas.
Such is the central thought in the med
ical philosophy of the now much-talked-
about Emile Coue, head Of the so-called
New Nancy school of mental healing and
the most advanced of all practitioners of
scientific mental medicine. But while thus
proclaiming the great power of self-sugges-
ton as an aid in the conquest of disease,
Coue is careful to insist that in order to
make self-suggestion effective certain prin-
ciples must be faithfully observed.
There must be concentration-~of the at
tention on the idea to be self-suggested.
Ideas which most surely tend to realize
themselves are always ideas on which the
attention is strongly concentrated, and
which are presented to the nina Win emo
tional intensity.
Yet this concentration must be accom-
panied by general relaxing of both mind
and body. For which reason it is most
| helpful to seek some quiet spot for the
giving of self-suggestions, to lie down, to
close the eyes,, to train ones self to be-
come for the moment mentally passive as
regards everything except the desired self
suggestion.
And one must not be impatient In ex-
pecting results. Repetition, frequent repe-
tition, of the idea one would suggest to
ones self is indispensable. So, too, in or
der to insure that the self-suggested idea
will "take" it is we'll always to repeat it
| to ones self in the same words.
| More specifically, to quote Coue's per-
| sonal instructions to patients who would
through self-suggestion aid themselves back
to health:
Every morning before you are fully
| awake, and every evening as soon" as you
are in bed, close your eyes and murmur
| twenty times, Day by day in all respects
I grow better and better It is we'll to be
provided with a piece of string with twenty
| knots tied in 1t, so that the counting may
| be mechanical.
| Let this self-suggestion be made with
| confidence and with faith The greater the
| confidence, the more rapid and certain the
| results.
Further, each time, whether by night or
| by day, physical mental suffering is
experienced, affirm instantly to yourself
| that you will not consciously encourage it's
existence and that you can make it dis
appear.
| "Then, if possible, close your eyes and
isolate yourself in thought, pass your hands
lightly over the seat of pain, or on the
| forehead If the suffering be mental. and
|
| is necessary: It's going On each recur-
renceAof the pain employ the same method
These exercises must be made with great
simplicity, and above all, without effort -
And, as a supplementary instruction, /
would quote from Coues pupil, Baudouin
when you say, Day by day in all re-
spects I grow better and BETTER mentally
underline in all respects since this in
cludes every kind of trouble, mental as well
as bodily Such general suggestion is more
potent than particular suggestions"
Especially to sufferers from functional
nervous and mental disorders is this
method of self-help through self-suggestion
to be recommended. Though, indeed, to
Judge from the remarkable reports that
have come from the Coue clinic at Nancy
1t may also be found of surprising value in
NOT Few cases of disease having an un.
mistakably organic basis
l lCopyrlght, 1922, by the Associated News
II papers.)