Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 1

Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action

Lindsay B. Yeates, PhD

School of Humanities & Languages, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, NSW Australia

Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis,

Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.3-27.

Abstract
The talented scientist, structured thinker, and successful apothecary, Émile Coué
(1857-1926), transformed what he had learned of suggestion in the 1880s and
scientific hypnotism in the 1900s into the Coué method of the 1920s. His method was
an ordered sequence of rational, systematic, intricately constructed, subject-centred
hypnotherapeutic interactions that stressed the significance of both unconscious and
conscious autosuggestion, delivered a collection of well-polished common-sense
explanations, a persuasive set of experiential exercises, a powerfully efficacious
hypnotism-centred ego-strengthening intervention and, finally, detailed instruction
in the specific ritual through which his empirically determined formula “Every day,
in every way, I’m getting better and better” was to be self-administered twice daily.
This paper examines Coué’s work, the history and evolution of his method, the
phenomenon of its wide-ranging impact during the 1920s in Europe, Britain, and
the USA, and reflects upon aspects of its long-term influence on the domain of
hypnotherapy and hypnotic suggestion.

KEY WORDS: autosuggestion, conscious autosuggestion, ego-strengthening,

hypnotherapy, hypnotic suggestion, self-hypnosis

NOTE to the Reader

A small number of textual errors and omissions in the final
published version of this paper have been corrected.
Otherwise, the original paper’s content remains unchanged.
[Also, please note that, for the reader’s convenience, the
original paper’s pagination is indicated as {1}, etc.]
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 2

{3}

Introduction
This is the first of three articles addressing the history (Part I), structure and rationale (Part II: Yeates,
2016b), and clinical delivery (Part III: Yeates, 2016c) of la méthode Coué. Recognising the considerable
difference between what Coué did, and what Coué said that he did ‘for public consumption’, the articles
have been constructed from an extensive collection of disparate and far from coherent sources, ranging
from Coué’s first public presentation of his ideas (Coué, 1912), through the various publications (mostly
transcripts of lectures, demonstrations, and interactions with subjects) that were issued under his name
(e.g., Coué, 1922a, 1922b, 1923a, 1923b, etc.), to his English (1923c) and French (1923d) gramophone
recordings and, as well, further embellished by reports of his lectures (Huxley, 1922; Littell, 1923, etc),
and by reports of visits to Nancy (Aram, 1923; Baird 1956/1923; {4} Stowe, 1923, etc.), as well as the more
detailed accounts of ‘followers’ (Baudouin, 1920; Bennett, 1922; Duckworth, 1922; Kirk, 1922;
Macnaghten, 1922; Brooks, 1923, Orton, 1935, etc.) and, finally, items associated with his joint enterprise
with James Louis Orton (1877-1964), The Coué-Orton Institute, which operated under the patronage of
Marquis Victor Vivien de Châteaubrun (see Coué & Orton, 1924; COI 1926; COIC (I)-(VI) 1926; and
Orton, 1935, 1955).

1. Preliminary
The insights, observations, technical developments, and procedural innovations of the scientist,
pharmacist, and psychotherapist Émile Coué (1857-1926) greatly influenced hypnotism in the English-
speaking world (for the Francophone, see Centassi & Grellet (1998), Guillemain (2010), Westphal &
Laxenaire (2012), etc.); and hypnotherapy was irreversibly altered for the better by his systematic ego-
strengthening procedure (see Yeates, 2014a, 2014b). “In less than a quarter of a century [Coué rose] from
obscurity to the position of the world’s most famous psychological exponent”; and, “one might truly say
that Coué sidetracked inefficient hypnotism [mistakenly based upon supposed operator dominance over a subject],
and paved the way for the efficient, and truly scientific” (Orton, 1935, p.293, 301). The magnitude, extension,
and value of his work is deeply embedded within the ‘given data’ of modern scientific hypnotism; and, at
his death in 1926, Coué was world-famous for:
(a) emphasising the transformative power of an appropriately directed mind;
(b) asserting that a mind could only hold a single idea at any one time;
(c) his discovery of characteristic patterns of systematic, efficacious suggestion;
(d) his eponymous method (to which many attributed remarkable cures of organic disease);
(e) his emphasis on hypnotism-centred ego-strengthening per medium of direct suggestion;
(f) his unique formula: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”; and
(g) his self-administration ritual, apparently derived from an Orthodox Christian hesychastic
practice known as The Prayer of the Heart.
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 3

Consistent with the views of Thomas Brown, M.D., and surgeon James Braid, Coué taught that the
complex arrangement of ‘ideas’, which operated deep below our conscious awareness, significantly
influenced our overall wellbeing; and, especially when dominant, continuously and spontaneously
suggested things to us:

We possess within us a force of incalculable power, which, when we handle it

unconsciously is often prejudicial to us.
If on the contrary we direct it in a conscious and wise manner, it gives us the mastery of
ourselves and allows us not only to escape … from physical and mental ills, but also to
live in relative happiness, whatever the conditions in which we may find ourselves.
(Coué, 1912, p.46)

{5}
Coué recognised that the mind-set, world-view, personal values, beliefs, prejudices, and non-
negotiable value system of each individual had not been acquired through rational persuasion; and,
therefore, was not amenable to logical reasoning or rational argument. This insight was consistent with
the views of Brown, Braid, and Liébeault (see Carrer, 2002) on specific ideas being held with such
intensity that they became dominant.

The drive behind Coué s enterprise was the same as that expressed by Braid in his fifth public lecture
on hypnotism in 1841: “my object is to dispel mystery, and elicit truth, in the simplest possible manner”
(Yeates, 2013, p.17). From his clinical experience of individual attitudes to injury, illness, and adversity—
and his own experimentation, observation, and reflection—Coué was certain that he had uncovered a
great ‘truth’ which others only partially apprehended (if at all), and he sought to disseminate the nature
of this ‘truth’, teach people how to make the most of it (and get the most out of it) and, in the process,
make them aware of the extent to which:
(a) we are influenced by suggestion;
(b) we are influenced by unconscious autosuggestions: suggestions (of which we have no conscious
awareness) involuntarily made to ourselves;
(c) ‘dominant ideas’ are realised through unconscious autosuggestion: the unconscious ideodynamic
activity of suggestion realisation;
(d) our unconscious auto-suggestions are continuously being accepted (and realised);
(e) noxious unconscious self-suggestions could be counteracted; and
(f) suggestions, mutually exclusive of already imbedded ‘ideas’, could be intentionally self-
administered (viz., conscious autosuggestion).

The mind could only hold one idea, in any specific cognitive domain, Coué said, at any given moment.
Given sufficient intensity, a ‘dominant’ idea would spontaneously and involuntarily begin to function
below one’s conscious levels of awareness as a ‘suggestion’ which, in its turn, would be biophysically
realized through the agency of an ideodynamic principle. The ‘idea’ embodied in Coué’s formula, which
was relentlessly repeated over an extended time, was 100% mutually exclusive of whatever had
previously inhabited the cognitive domain in question.
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 4

Using the example of “moral fault”, Coué explained his approach this way:

Suppose our brain is a plank in which are driven nails which represent the ideas, habits,
and instincts, which determine our actions.
If we find that there exists in a subject a bad idea, a bad habit, a bad instinct—as it were, a
bad nail, we take another which is the good idea, habit, or instinct, place it on top of the
bad one and give a tap with a hammer—in other words we make a suggestion.
The new nail will be driven in perhaps a fraction of an inch, while the old one will come
out to the same extent.
At each fresh blow of the hammer, that is to say at each fresh suggestion, the one will be
driven in a fraction further and the other will be driven out the same amount, until, after
a certain number of blows, the old nail will {6} come out completely and be replaced by
the new one.
When this substitution has been made, the individual obeys it.
(Coué, 1922b, pp.27-28)

Although, according to Cheek and LeCron, most of our current knowledge of suggestion “stems from
Coué” (1968, p.60), Coué is virtually unknown today—leading some, such as Barrucand and Paille
(1986), to assert that it must have been Coué’s charisma, rather than his method, that produced the
astonishing results that have been attributed to his work. Today, his practices, techniques, and methods
are ignored, trivialised, or attributed to others. A monument to Coué, funded by public subscription,
and erected in his honour in 1936, still stands in Nancy’s St. Mary’s Park today; but for the rest of the
world, if Coué is remembered at all, it’s as an unsophisticated, heavy-smoking French rustic, possessed
of a remarkable ability to exploit gullible people into believing they could solve all their problems by
relying on irrational, Pollyanna-like optimism:

That wily French chemist, Coué,

Declared to the world that “I say,
To cure all your ills,
Without any pills,
Just think yourself better each day.” (Anon.)

The following is intended to remedy this misunderstanding.

2. Background

2.1 Situating Coué

Coué was a well-trained scientist. He was an inquisitive and intelligent student; and, despite his lack
of height, was physically strong, and an excellent swimmer. He could read Latin, spoke fluent German
and English, and had both B.A. and B.Sc. degrees before he was 21. His boyhood aspiration was to be an
analytical chemist; but inadequate family finances forced him to choose pharmacy—which, to Baudouin,
clearly explained why Coué “instinctively turn[ed, in later life] to another chemistry [namely,] the
chemistry of thought and human action” (1923, p.14, emphasis added).

In 1876, Coué was apprenticed to a small Troyes Apothecary. He learned to examine and diagnose;
prescribe and compound medicines; regulate, control, and operate a chemical laboratory; and promote,
market, and sell proprietary medicines and his employer’s concoctions. In 1879, he won a government
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 5

scholarship to the prestigious Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris. In 1880, M. Duprat, of Troyes’ largest
Apothecary, approached Coué’s father, offering equal partnership on his graduation and full ownership
at Duprat’s death. Coué’s impecunious father refused; but, once he learned that no financial contribution
was sought, and that Duprat would soon retire, they soon reached an agreement.

Coué graduated top of his class (with First Class Honours) in July 1882, and spent six months as a
pharmaceutical intern at Paris’s Necker Hospital. Duprat died in the {7} interim. Duprat’s widow upheld
the agreement. Twenty-six year-old Coué took over the business in 1883. The business prospered. He
met Lucie Lemoine (1858-1954), the daughter of world-famous plant breeder Victor Lemoine, and they
married in 1884 (for more detail on Coué’s life, see Orton, 1935, passim).

As both a first-contact prescribing pharmacist and a dispensing chemist, Coué constantly interacted
with people who were, often, extremely sick, involving consultations, diagnosis and prescription,
appraisal of treatment efficacy, deciding next treatment, etc., which forced him to recognise:
(a) the importance of an individual’s accepting, assimilating, storing, transmitting, discharging,
and evacuating functions operating smoothly and continuously at their optimal level;
(b) the influence of mental attitude on an individual’s personal experience of adversity, discomfort,
illness or injury;
(c) the influence of mental attitude on treatment outcomes; and
(d) that healing entailed a slow progression of incremental changes, over an extended time.

2.2 Setting
France lost nearly 2 million citizens to military action, malnutrition, or disease in the Great War
(another 4+ million wounded)—approx. 15% of its population. Cases of ‘shell-shock’ (see Lerner, 2003;
and Lembke, 2016) were demonstrating “[the significant] rôle which the mind plays in human biology
and pathology” (Huxley, 1922, p.192). The 1918 Spanish Flu infected at least a third of the world’s
population, killing at least 20% of those infected (more than 65 million dead worldwide). Instead of the
young, old, and infirm, it killed healthy adults of 20-40. To the collective distress of the medical
profession, there was no known intervention. This widespread disciplinary failure amplified the
negative views that many already held of conventional medicine. In his 1923 satirical play, Romains
wrote of a “Dr. Knock”, whose exceptional commercial success came from his ability to convince healthy
individuals that they had a heretofore-unrecognised ailment (Bamforth, 2002). Barcs-Masson (1962,
p.368) observed that Coué was the opposite of Knock—rather than finding hidden disease within the
healthy, he activated dormant health within the ailing.
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 6

2.3 Clientele
Ignoring specific issues such as performance anxiety, road rage, weight, smoking, drinking, unsafe sex,
etc., those seeking hypnotherapy today do so because of ill-defined, vague feelings that:
(a) their health is far from optimal;
(b) their worry about past/present/future events is excessive and debilitating;
(c) they are not comfortable with who they are;
(d) they’re not performing up to the level of their true potential; and/or
(e) their lives are lacking some significant (but unidentified) thing.
{8}
Coué’s subjects sought relief from injury, illness, and organic disease; and, rather than being the “port
of last call” (Kroger, 1977, p.344), he was the first consulted. Routinely relying on household remedies,
they sought pharmaceutical support when all else failed; only consulting a physician as a very last
resort. As the Dean of the Yale School of Medicine later observed, this was rational—up to the 1930s
(when insulin, sulpha drugs, and Vitamin B12 emerged, and physiological discoveries spawned new
surgical practices), conventional medicine’s standard interventions were almost useless for “alter[ing]
either the natural course of disease or its eventual outcome” (Thomas, 1972, p.15) and, generally, did far
more harm than good (Thomas, 1974, p.100).

2.4 Misrepresentation
Coué was a teacher; not a healer. He acknowledged the existence of disease, and was not opposed to
medical intervention:

I am not a doctor, and would much prefer to be considered in the light of [being] the
doctor’s auxiliary…
In all cases of serious organic disability, I say to those who seek me out:
“Are you receiving medical treatment?”
If they reply “Yes”, I give the advice:
“Continue with it then, and practice auto-suggestion also.”
If they reply “No”, I say:
“Consult a doctor then, and follow his treatment as well as using autosuggestion. You
will find that the two treatments help each other.”
(Coué, in Coué & Orton, 1924, p.14)

Coué’s clinical goal was to arouse the inbuilt force that all humans possessed (Coué, 1922b, pp.22-23).
He always said that any success was entirely due to his subject’s efforts. He had no mystical power, he
said—instead, the ‘power’ was in his approach: “my disciples obtain the same results as myself ” (Kirk,
1922, p.66). Unfortunately, like those seeking solace at Lourdes (Charcot, 1893), the ‘revivals’ of Oral
Roberts (Randi, 1989), or the ‘crusades’ of Benny Hinn (Nickell, 2002), etc., the most credulous of Coué’s
audiences—witnessing counter-intuitive events which they attributed to counterintuitive agents (Pyysiäinen,
2002)—lauded him as a miracle-worker (Stowe, 1923).
Coue’s method was disarmingly non-complex—needing few instructions for on-going competence,
based on rational principles, easily understood, demanding no intellectual sophistication, simply
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 7

explained, simply taught, performed in private, using a subject’s own resources, requiring no elaborate
preparation, and no expenditure.

3. Matters of Principle

3.1 Therapist Mind-Set

As discussed elsewhere (Yeates, 2002, pp.10-11), therapeutic interventions (secular exorcisms) that
assume humans are illness-prone and seek to identify and expel disease (goal: ‘disease-free’) are driven
by a vastly different mind-set from those {9} interventions (secular invocations) that view humans as
robust and health-sustaining, and seek to locate and invigorate the good (goal: ‘robust health’).

Freud and Adler exemplify this distinction. Freud held that distress was due to an unalterable past
history. The sole purpose of Freud’s “psychotherapeutic operations”—analogous, he said, to “[scraping
out] a cavity filled with pus” (Freud, 1895/1955, p.305)—was the attenuation of anxiety and the
conversion of neurotic distress into normal human misery [sic]. For Adler, distress was due to an absence of
aspirations of the future, the possession of which he sought to inculcate in his patients (“I am not what
has happened to me; I am what I choose to become”: attributed to Carl Jung).

3.2 Healing
Coué and Orton (1924, pp.39-40), like many others, chose Stahl’s metaphors, vis conservatrix naturæ
(“sustaining force of nature”) and vis medicatrix naturæ (“healing force of nature”) to identify:
(a) the ‘normal’ sustaining/preventive absorbing, processing, converting; and eliminating activities
of the respiratory, digestive, and circulatory systems; and
(b) the ‘abnormal’ restorative/correcting activities of stanching bleeding, seamlessly mending
broken bones, providing immunity via vaccination, etc. respectively (see Neuberger, 1944, p.20).

Heinroth had extended the philosophical concept of akrasia (‘weakness of will’) to acting in certain
ways despite explicit intentions not to do so, such as eating chocolate, c.1818. Leubuscher (c.1838) spoke
of aboulia (‘inability to act’), in situations where one’s body failed to respond to mental commands (e.g.,
to move one’s arm). In the battlefield, the triage (lit. ‘to sort’) process of French ambulance workers
identified three types of casualty (Iverson & Moskop, 2007, p.277):
(a) those who would inevitably die;
(b) those who would inevitably live (regardless of whether they received treatment); and
(c) those who would live, but only if they received immediate treatment.

Coué did all he could to motivate, liberate, and utilise the vis medicatrix naturæ; and, rather than
nullifying ‘negatives’, he sought to generate harmonious mental processes, arouse dormant/latent
capacities, and create entirely new resources: “whatever the illness, the practice of rational auto-
suggestion will always effect an appreciable improvement in the patient’s condition, even if the disease
itself be incurable” (Coué, 1923b, p.21). Natural healing would occur in a far shorter time, he argued,
and might even take place in apparently impossible situations (see Barber (1984) on reversing cancer;
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 8

curing dermatitis; reducing hypertension; lessening cardiac problems; stimulating breast growth;
healing burns; relieving asthma; removing warts, etc.).
{10}

3.3 Mental Processes

Most mental processes occur outside our conscious awareness and beyond our control. Just as high
morale, cohesion, esprit de corps, and good leadership positively affect the fatigue, recovery time, wound
healing, etc. of soldiers, our hidden mental processes play a significant role in who we are, what/how
we feel, what we can/can’t tolerate, and our propensity towards wellness, immunity, and robust health
(or infection, illness and dysfunction). All change is stressful (see Bridges, 1980). Coué’s approach
counteracted change-generated stress, removed impediments to optimal progress, and attenuated any
fear of unknown futures (or grief for lost pasts).

Negative emotions reduce immune system function (Fredrickson, et al., 2013). Positive emotions
generate changes in DNA structure (Epel, et al., 2009; Jacobs, et al., 2011) and function (Bhasin, et al.,
2013), reduce inflammatory activity (Pace, et al., 2009), increase anti-viral responses (Morgan, et al.,
2014), improve immune cell function (Fang, et al., 2010), and cause higher antibody production
(Davidson, et al., 2003). Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) research indicated that hidden mental processes
could affect the performances of others.

Other research indicates that, rather than our explicitly reported opinions, it’s the hidden, implicitly
held (‘unconscious’) self-evaluations that are the ‘given data’ for our on-going existence. Negative self-
evaluations are detrimental to health, constitutional strength, physiological function, task performance,
judgement, social behaviour, optimism, and emotional wellbeing (see Hetts & Pelham (2001), Bargh
(2005), Conner & Barrett, (2005), Pally (2007), etc.)—the most extreme being the psychogenic deaths from
voodoo hexes, the evil eye, or ‘pointing the bone’ procedures (Cannon, 1942; Hahn & Kleinman, 1983;
Cohen, 1985; Phillips, et al., 2001, etc.). Although many, when given a terminal prognosis, die
prematurely (Milton, 1973), it’s not remarkable for ‘terminal’ cancers to go into full remission (LeShan,
1980, 1990). And, as Hollander reminds us, “there is no hypnotist who can produce such complex
[physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural] results all at once as manifest in a person who has
‘fallen in love’” (1928, pp.18-20).

3.4 Mind over Matter?

By contrast with modern ‘positive mental attitude’ approaches—which strive to un-imagine imaginary
conditions, reverse hysterical disorders, and expel ‘mental germs’—Coué’s efforts were directed at
achieving command over oneself: arousing the will to live, increasing self-responsibility (addressing
akrasia), increasing proactive initiative (addressing aboulia), activating natural healing processes (vis
medicatrix naturæ), arousing latent neurochemical and neurobiological resources (see Frisaldi, et al. 2015),
promoting natural self-regulation (vis conservatrix naturæ), strengthening the ‘will to health’ (Nietzsche’s
‘Wille zur Gesundheit’) and, overall, ego-strengthening (see Yeates, 2014a).
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 9

{11}
In addition to greater self-confidence—i.e., having a better ‘self ’ to be confident about, rather than having a
greater confidence in the same incoherent ‘self’—Coué’s subjects gained self-efficacy, greater self-reliance, a
far more internal locus of control, a clearer mind, a calmer emotional state, and a far more efficient
physiological eco-system. This, in turn, fostered better inter-personal relationships, and promoted
positive individual qualities, such as insight, independence, initiative, and creativity.
Despite the constant assertions of the Coué-trivialisers, Coué did not generate false hope—in fact,
‘hope’ is either realised or not realised; but it’s never false—if anything, he dispelled false despair.

3.5 The Hypnotic Interaction

Without knowing the response, there’s no objective a priori difference “between [a] suggestive idea
and any other idea” (Titchener, 1910, p.450). Given their individual differences in outlook, knowledge,
experience, temperament, natural ability, and cooperativeness, hypnotic subjects manifest phenomena
that are peculiar to themselves; and, so, all things being equal, it is obvious that the induction of a
specific-to-purpose ‘hypnotic state’ is contingent upon:
(a) the capacity of the operator’s utterances to evoke the desired ‘state’; and
(b) the capacity of the subject to construct the ‘state’ so demanded.

In 1920, Janet (pp.284-285) drew attention to the significant and important difference between an
operator making a suggestion, and a subject taking the suggestion (see also Gauld, 1992, pp.610-611).

4. Mental Therapeutics

4.1 Two schools

Two theoretical positions on hypnotism flourished in France at the end of the nineteenth century:
(a) The subject-oriented “Suggestion School” (fl.1864-1907), centred on Ambroise-Auguste
Liébeault at Nancy, which taught that the ‘hypnotic state’ was a perfectly natural condition, and
that the efficacy of suggestion alone was significantly enhanced by hypnotism (Bernheim,
1887/1889; Sandor, 1980; Gauld, 1992; Carrer, 2002).
(b) The operator-oriented “Hysteria School” (fl.1878-1893), centred on neurologist Jean-Martin
Charcot at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris, which taught that the capacity to be hypnotised
was a symptom of a pathological condition approximating hysteria—at his death (1893),
Charcot was preparing to renounce his ‘hysteria’ theories and adopt the Nancy position (see
Owen, 1971, and Gauld, 1992).
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 10

4.2 Coué and the “Suggestion School”

In 1885, Coué’s father-in-law introduced him to Liébeault, a medical practitioner of Nancy who,
deeply interested in animal magnetism in his Strasbourg student {12} days, had adopted hypnotism after
moving to France in the early 1860s (Gauld, 1992, p.320). Liébeault (who first met Bernheim in 1882)
used a laborious, monotonous, “sleep, sleep, sleep” hypnotic induction—thus, his inappropriate,
misleading, and ambiguous term ‘hypnosis’—to produce a “charme” (‘spellbound’) state. He promoted
“suggestive therapeutics”—an imperfect re-branding of the ‘dominant idea’ theory that Braid had
appropriated from Thomas Brown (see Brown, 1851; Braid, 1843; Carpenter, 1853b, etc.).

An inspired Coué leased his pharmacy, moved to Nancy, and studied with Liébeault in 1885 and 1886
(Baudouin, 1920, p.13). Having exhausted his savings, he returned to Troyes and resumed his pharmacy
(which had declined in his absence). He dabbled with ‘hypnosis’ in Troyes in 1886, but soon discovered
that Liébeault’s techniques were hopeless, and abandoned ‘hypnosis’ altogether. Coué later (c.1913)
observed that Liébeault was vague, imprecise, and “lacked method” (Baudouin, 1923, pp.18-21); further
remarking, in 1926, that, whilst, “in many cases, [Liébeault] got good effects … he lacked a theoretically
correct method, [and, consequently,] worked blindly” (COICC (I), 1926, p.21). Whilst agreeing with his
view that hypnotism amplified the effectiveness of suggestion, he strongly disagreed with Liébeault’s
view that hypnotism made suggestion ‘inescapable’ (see Bernheim, 1889, p.207); it was, he said, an
artifact of the hypnotist:

Such automatism as does occur in ‘subjects’ is mainly brought about through imagining
that they are being dominated by the operator.
The operator usually explains that such dominance, of necessity, cannot extend beyond a
certain specified point, but sufficiently far to ensure compliance with favourable
suggestions, the actualization of which suggestions is consequently taken for granted by
many, and, no contrary thought being in consciousness, success ensues.
In such instances the ‘subject’ imagines what he wishes because he has imagined that he
would!
(COICC (I), 1926, p.22)

5. Scientific Hypnotism

5.1 Sage of Rochester

In 1901, in the hope of improving his business, Coué bought an American bookkeeping text (Neal,
1899). Responding to its accompanying literature, he sent for a free book, Hypnotism as It is (Sage, 1900a),
which offered to disclose “secrets [of the] science that brings business and social success” and “the
hidden mysteries of personal magnetism, hypnotism, magnetic healing, etc.”. Deeply impressed, he
purchased the associated correspondence course by stage hypnotist extraordinaire, “Professor
Xenophon LaMotte Sage. A.M., Ph.D., LL.D.”, of Rochester, New York, for thirty francs.

“Sage” was Ewing Virgil Neal (1868-1949), author of the bookkeeping text. A multi-millionaire,
calligrapher, hypnotist, publisher, advertising/marketing pioneer, pharmaceutical manufacturer,
parfumier, international businessman, confidant of {13} Mussolini, Commandatore of the Order of the
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 11

Crown of Italy, Officer of the Legion of Honour, and fugitive from justice, Neal moved to France in the
1920s (see Conroy, 2014). He had been a teacher at Sedalia’s Central Business College for eight years;
and, while there, had undertaken an intensive collaborative study of hypnotism with his teaching
colleague, Sidney Weltmer (see “Prof. Weltmer”, 1923). [Weltmer’s ultimate vocation was healing; not
entertainment (see Weltmer 1899/1996, 1900, 1901, 1922; Brophy, 1997).] Neal toured the USA (1896-
1898) as a highly successful stage hypnotist; and, in 1899, “Professor X. LaMotte Sage. A.M., Ph.D.,
LL.D.”, of Rochester, was admitted to the prestigious Medico-Legal Society of New York.

5.2 The Correspondence Course

Having written Hypnotism as It is, and both the English and French versions of the correspondence
course (Sage, 1900b, 1900c 1900d, 1900e), Neal produced two compendia of contemporary hypnotic
knowledge (Neal & Clark, 1900a, 1900b) containing articles from thirty two eminent individuals,
(Baldwin, et al., 1900, 1901; Buchner, et al., 1901a, 1901b), that did much to publicise scientific
hypnotism.

The course materials included the compendia’s articles (American College of Sciences, 1900a-1900f),
and Wharton’s (1900) 15-page pamphlet on using “McIntyre’s Hypnotic Ball”. The materials were
unparalleled in their precision, clarity, and direct relevance to the needs of distance-learning students.
Students developed presence, confidence, and authority from its exercises (Sage, 1900d, pp.8-23), and
were guided through a number of efficient, Braid-style, upwards and inwards squint induction techniques
and efficacious applications of incremental suggestion. The course stressed that, “by autohypnosis [the
student] can cure himself of disease, improve his memory, cure himself of bad habits, and derive all the
benefits himself that he can confer upon others by treating them under hypnosis” (Adkin, 1900, p.115).
Coué undertook experiments, such as:

Lie down and relax your muscles, at a certain time during the day when you are in a
quiet or receptive state of mind.
Place some bright object in such a position that it will cause you to roll your eyes upward
a little in order to see it, causing a slight strain of the optic nerve…
All the time you are looking at the object, concentrate your mind as follows:
“…when I awaken I will feel better. Each day I will positively improve. Each
day from now on, I will notice a great change in my condition. I am feeling
better every day. I will soon be well.”
(Adkin, 1900, pp.115-116)

5.3 The Hypnotist

Coué immediately recognised that the course’s Braid-style of hypnotism was ideal for mental
therapeutics. He undertook an intense study, and was soon skilled enough to offer hypnotism alongside
his pharmaceutical enterprise. In the context of Liébeault’s ‘hypnosis’, Braid’s hypnotism, and Coué’s
(later) discoveries about autosuggestion, one must recognise the substantially different orientations of
Liebeault’s “suggestive therapeutics”, which concentrated on imposing the coercive power of the
operator’s suggestion, and Braid’s “psycho-physiology”, which concentrated on activating the
transformative power of the subject’s mind.
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 12

{14}
Coué’s hypnotic skill contrasts strongly with other hypnotic ‘experts’, such as Charcot, who never
performed a single hypnotic induction in their entire life (Gauld, 1992, p.314). Coué continued to actively
use formal hypnotism and direct suggestion until his death (see Baudouin, 1920, pp.257-258); and, in accord
with Adkin’s “bright object” recommendation, he always used “a metal disc [to induce hypnotism] at
which he directed the [subject] to stare whilst he (Coué) moved it [rapidly] round and round … a little
way from and above the subject’s eyes” along with suggestions of “feeling sleepy”, and “that sleep
would come when he had counted twenty, and so on” (Orton, 1935, p.148).

As his skills developed, as his efficacy improved, as his understanding of suggestion expanded, and as
the popularity of his (free) hypnotherapeutic services increased, he modified his approach from a one-to-
one interaction to group ego-strengthening sessions, gradually improving his explanations, incremental
delivery processes, and the form and content of his ego-strengthening procedure.

5.4 Nancy
In 1910, Coué sold his pharmacy, and retired to Nancy, where he opened a hypnotherapeutic clinic
that continuously delivered some 40,000 treatment-units per annum (Baudouin, 1920, p.14) over the next
16 years. In 1913, he established The Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology. He never adopted Baudouin’s
designation “New Nancy School” (1920, p.13); and, according to Glueck (1923, p.112), who visited Nancy
in 1922, Coué was “rather annoyed” with Baudouin’s characterisation.

6. Beyond Nancy
Having developed his explanatory accounts, subject-conditioning exercises, and his central ego-
strengthening monologue, Coué began to disseminate his ideas.

6.1 The 1912 Chaumont Lecture

On 21 January 1912, Coué delivered a paper, “Suggestion and its Applications” to the Natural History and
Paleoethnology Society of Haute-Marne. He spoke of two ‘selves’, a “conscious self” and an “unconscious self”,
how the ‘unconscious self’, not the ‘conscious self’, “presided over all the functions of our organism
[and] all of our actions, whatever they might be” (1912, p.26). He demonstrated the power of the
‘unconscious self’ over the ‘conscious self’, observing that we, “who are so proud of our control”, and
“believe that we are free to do whatever we might choose to do”, are no more than “wretched
marionettes”, with our ‘unconscious self’ holding the strings. He spoke of drunkards, despite their
desire to abstain, being “irresistibly impelled to drink”, and of criminals continuing to commit crimes, in
spite of themselves, because they were unable to resist the urge to do so (p.28).

He asserted that a ‘suggestion’ was only effective to the extent to which it had been ‘auto-suggested’.
Highlighting the advantage of harnessing such a powerful natural mechanism, he stressed the
importance of side-stepping the ‘conscious self’, and concentrating entirely on the ‘unconscious self’. He
spoke (p.31) of his conclusions on the relative strengths of consciously held ‘ideas’ (associated with “the
will”) and unconsciously held ‘ideas’ (associated with “the imagination”); and {15} displayed four
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 13

“experiences” that demonstrated ‘dominant ideas’ being realized per medium of ‘auto-suggestion’. He
described his ego-strengthening procedure, and concluded his presentation with case studies.

6.2 Subsequent Versions

Although embellished with more recent case studies—and his “Every day, in every way, I’m getting
better and better” formula, and its knotted string self-administration ritual (viz., Coué, 1922a, pp.1-37,
and 1922c)—his 1912 presentation, including its ego-strengthening component, remained the central
core of the lectures he delivered over several decades in France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Austria,
Germany, Portugal, Italy, and to English-speaking audiences in England and the United States.

In 1923, an abridged version of his formal presentation, including the ego-strengthening component,
the formula, and the knotted string self-administration ritual, was recorded in New York, by the
Columbia Gramophone Company in both English and French language versions. A silent film of his
presentation was released in the US in 1923 (with Coué using professional actors for his
demonstrations). Except for a 10 second clip in a newsreel, no copies of the film exist today. It seems
inevitable that all of the remaining copies were consigned to the flames (along with all of the other film
stock considered ‘surplus to requirements’) in the process of filming the “Burning of Atlanta” scene for
Gone with the Wind on 10 December 1938.

7. Beyond France
Prior to World War I, Coué mainly concentrated his efforts on his clinical work in Nancy. Given its
close proximity to Germany, wartime travel was restricted; and Nancy was a continual target for the
German artillery. Once post-war travel was possible, foreign visitors came to Coué. Some sought
treatment—e.g., Alice Baird, headmistress of St. James’s School for Girls; Roger Fry, English painter and
art critic; Mary Garden, Scottish soprano, etc. Others came to observe his work—e.g., ‘shell-shock’ expert
Monier-Williams, who conducted a free autosuggestion clinic from his medical practice for many years
(and, also, was responsible for encouraging Coué to visit England); Archibald Stark Van Orden, founder
of the Coué League of America; John Herbert Duckworth, a journalist, etc.

7.1 Children
Coué’s approach to treating children was based upon involvement, love and good will, and it
provided a means through which parents could cultivate their children, by:
(a) using suggestion with infants;
(b) teaching them autosuggestion as soon as they could talk;
(c) utilising sleep-suggestion—thus, extending the earlier approaches of Farez (1898) and Flower
(1898); and
(d) delivering positive encouragements to do better, rather than reproaches for error (see Coué,
1922d; Brooks, 1923, pp.36-45; Mayo, 1923; Noble, 1924; and Waters, 1924).
{16}
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 14

Several of his followers opened special clinics that were dedicated to children, including Josephine
Mary Richardson, a teacher and one-time governess to a noble Japanese family, who opened an Institute
for the Practice of Auto-Suggestion, in London; Marie Kauffman, operating in Nancy itself; Anne
Villeneuve, in Paris; and Mia Kloek-Pirée, in Amsterdam.

7.2 The United Kingdom

[Coué’s visits to England and his lectures on autosuggestion] helped to present the
practical psychology of positive thinking, not as a new religion, but as part of common
sense.
Its grip on the popular imagination was such that a [1922] Daily Express report on suicide
could expect its readers to understand that this was a case of “Couéism Reversed”.
(Thomson, 2006, p.38)

Coué visited the United Kingdom on at least eight occasions; that is, aside from other visits that were
directly connected with matters associated with the Coué-Orton Institute. His visits involved clinical
sessions, demonstrations, and lecture tours. He spoke to large audiences, often with an interpreter, and
sometimes he spoke in English. He also spoke to smaller audiences (including, on one occasion, boys
from Eton) in French. They were well reported in the English press. For an objective account of the
‘before’, ‘during’, and ‘after’ of Coué’s visits to the UK see Rapp (1987).

7.3 The United States

The US edition of Coué’s Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion (viz., 1922b) was one of the
Chicago Sunday Tribune’s best selling non-fiction works in September and October 1922 and one of the
“books most in demand at the Chicago public library” in November and December 1922. Coué made
two whirlwind tours of the United States; the first, of five weeks, was in January/February 1923, and the
second, of eight and a half weeks, was in January/March 1924. For an objective account of the ‘before’,
‘during’, and ‘after’ of the two American sojourns see Whiteside (1953), and de Kay (1976).

Coué’s lecture tours, which included New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Detroit,
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, not only received an extraordinary level of day-to-day press
coverage, but his series of eight “hitherto unpublished articles”, Every Day in Every Way (later, Coué,
1923b, pp.1-191), his eighteen articles, Get “Better Day by Day”; Dr. Coue Tells You How (a translation of
his 1912 lecture, enhanced with more recent case studies) and his eleven opinion pieces, American
Impressions by “The Miracle Man of France” (later, Coué, 1923b, pp.101-191) were syndicated nationwide.

An overworked, greatly fatigued, and culturally disoriented Coué was exposed to just as much
incredulous condemnation as credulous adulation—pilloried by some sections of the U.S. press, and
revered by others. Any clinics conducted {17} were free and most of the takings from his lectures went to
the institutes that were being established to disseminate his method. Also, rather than small groups, he
was regularly addressing audiences of 1,000+ (with seats for each performance sold out, and scalpers
making lucrative sales)—the majority of whom were sensation-seekers anxious to witness miracles.
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 15

As Hollahan (1989, p.322) observed, “Coué’s original intention of inducing ailing people to help
themselves became lost in the [American-press-generated confusion of performances that] came to
resemble latter-day TV healing spectacles, including physical contact between healer and healed”. Part
of the blame lay with Coué—he was a boring lecturer with an uninteresting, light, weak voice (Orton,
1935, p.126), who took 90 minutes to deliver his message:

The lectures, demonstrations, and interviews followed a monotonously similar pattern

that Coué never seemed to tire of repeating.
He described his method, how he had arrived at it, the principles on which it was based,
and the many cures it had effected.
Often there would be demonstrations: volunteers would come to the stage, be told to
clasp their hands, and then be told they were unable to unclasp them; they would find
themselves unable to do so until Coué lifted the spell.
(Yankauer, 1999, p.492)

8. The Coué-Orton Institute

Coué and the renowned voice coach and expert hypnotist, James Louis Orton (1877-1964) first met
each other in Paris in May 1922 (Orton, 1955, p.48). In 1923 they pooled their individual talents, abilities
and knowledge, and produced the jointly written book, Conscious Auto-Suggestion in 1924. Orton was
approached by Marquis Victor Vivien de Châteaubrun, the spokesman for a consortium, who proposed
establishing a teaching institution with an associated treatment clinic, in London, that would be funded
independently of Coué and Orton.

Orton contacted Coué, and Coué agreed to take part. Soon the two of them were preparing teaching
material designed for both classroom teaching and distance learning via correspondence lessons (about
30% written by Coué, 50% by Orton, and 20% jointly written). The Institute, with a nominal capital of
£5,250 began its operation in London in early 1925. The arrangement was that, although both Coué and
Orton lent their names to the Institution, and freely supplied their intellectual property, they had no
shares in the business. For his trouble, Coué (based in France) would receive £500 per annum; and Orton
(as the Director of Instruction, and based in London) was to receive £500 per annum plus 10% of the net
profits.

The day-to-day administration of the business was left to William Francis Mitchell. Unbeknown to
either Coué or Orton, Mitchell was an un-discharged bankrupt who, in 1923 and 1924, had dissolved all
of the eleven companies he had formed in 1917. All of the advertising was his concern. Mitchell
exploited his position and launched a massive campaign to raise a considerable amount {18} of money
(allegedly for the business). Coué objected to all of this inappropriate commercialisation, withdrew his
support, and retracted his permission to use his name. Orton dallied for a while, in the hope that things
would improve. They did not. Orton also withdrew, and the entire teaching operation came to an end
not long before Coué’s death (for more details, see Orton, 1935, passim).
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 16

9. Objections and Criticism

As Duckworth has observed, “most of us are so accustomed … to an elaborate medical ritual … in the
treatment of our ills … [that] anything so simple as Coué’s autosuggestion is inclined to arouse
misgivings, antagonism and a feeling of scepticism” (1922, pp.3-4). Coué never gave any empirical
evidence for the efficacy of his formula, and his claims had not been scientifically evaluated prior to the
three experimental studies conducted more than 20 years ago, which seem to offer some unexpected
support for Coué’s claims (Paulhus, 1993).

There were heated protests from religious figures against Coué’s ‘self-healing’ (maintaining that God
alone heals); yet, as Yogananda observed (1962, p.5), whilst it was self-healing, “you are using your own,
but God-given powers to heal yourself ”. Frank Bennett, Dean of Chester, a fan of Coué, had a foot in
both camps, recommending that, rather than reaching for a pill, his flock should “try M. Coué’s
prescription” and, every night for a month, just before bed, when “sleepy”, repeat Coué’s formula
twenty times:

Or, if you like, expand [Coué’s standard formula] into

Hour by hour and day by day,
In all respects and in every way,
Better I get and better I stay.
Blessed by God Who maketh me whole,
Rest and rejoice in Him, Ο my soul,
And magnify Him alway.
At the end of the month, you will go on with the prescription because you will find that
you really are better.
(Bennett, 1922, p.18)

Excusing the notions imposed upon Coué in the earnest publications of those later identified as Psycho-
Christians (see Richards, 2000), such as Bennett (1922), Macnaghten (1922), and Brooks and Charles
(“Jesus makes me, day by day,/A better girl, in every way” (1923) p.142), and once the objections driven by
intentional misrepresentation, prejudice, or incorrigible bigotry, such as “Another Gentleman with a
Duster” (1923), who held that Coué was part of a world-wide Jewish plot to destabilise Christianity, and
the commentaries that display an outright ignorance of fact are set aside, it is clear that most of the
criticism of Coué’s work was driven by loyalty to the critic’s (incommensurable) theoretical orientation
and therapeutic approach.
{19}
That Coué’s formula could be applied with a minimum of instruction was challenging; and the
accounts of Coué’s method curing organic disease were just as threatening to the conventional medicine
of the day, as they were inspiring to Coué’s devotees. The heated protests of the psychomedical
establishment (e.g., Moxon, 1923) were routinely made on one or more of the following grounds (see
Abraham, 1926, pp.190-191):
 Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 17

(a) Healing of organic disease by ‘self-mastery’ was impossible! Aside from ‘spontaneous
remissions’ of authentic disease (efficacious vis medicatrix naturæ!), reported ‘cures’ were either
due to mistaken diagnosis (it was never that disease!), or mistaken prognosis (it was always
going to get better!). Anyway, even if it had been diagnosed correctly, there was no compelling
evidence to suggest that Coué’s approach had been in any way responsible for the cure.
(b) Even if it was true that, in some extraordinary circumstances, healing by ‘self-mastery’ was
possible, Coué’s failure to immediately eliminate those with counterproductive limitations—
such as, for example, those lacking the required dedication, mind-set, talent, diligence,
persistence, patience, etc.—resulted in many (clearly unsuited) individuals mistakenly
postponing (otherwise) life-saving operations and delaying (otherwise) radical medical
treatment far beyond any prospect of recovery or cure.
(c) Despite the obvious fact that each ‘disease’ had a unique cause, a unique history, and a unique
(and idiosyncratic) personal impact, Coué treated a wide range of disparate individuals in the
same, single group session, in the same way; and, moreover, he treated them without any sort
of detailed examination or differential diagnosis.
(d) The method’s central ‘magical incantation’—a specific formula, uttered a specific number of
times, in a special way, using a knotted string—aroused strong opposition, as it reeked of
outmoded superstitious practices and beliefs.

10. Death
Coué died in Nancy of emphysema and heart failure at the age of 69, several days after having been
taken ill while lecturing at Strasbourg. The obituary in The Times was typical in its praise for this gentle,
kind and benevolent man, and in its expression of sorrow for the passing of “a picturesque and a
gracious figure … who believed so passionately in his creed, [and] was interesting and important in
proportion to his sincerity. The good that he accomplished, and he accomplished good, belonged
primarily to his kind and simple heart.”

To be continued in Part II.

======================================================
{20}

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{23}

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Additional Reference Material

Coué-Orton Institute: Correspondence Course
Coué, E., The World’s Greatest Power, How to Make the Most of It: Coué-Orton Intensive Course, Branch I, Coué-Orton
Institute, (London), 1926.
Coué, E., Conscious Auto-Suggestion in Everyday Life: Coué-Orton Intensive Course, Branch II, Coué-Orton Institute,
(London), 1926.
Coué, E., & Orton, J.L., The Key to Complete Living: Coué-Orton Intensive Course, Branch III, Coué-Orton Institute,
(London), 1926.
Orton, J.L., Personality: Its Nature, Operation & Development: Coué-Orton Intensive Course, Branch IV, Coué-Orton
Institute, (London), 1926.
Coué, E., & Orton, J.L., The Coué-Orton System of Vocal Culture: Coué-Orton Intensive Course, Branch V, Coué-Orton
Institute, (London), 1926.
Coué, E., & Orton, J.L., Hygienic Therapy: Coué-Orton Intensive Course, Branch VI, Coué-Orton Institute, (London),
1926.

78 RPM recordings (approx. 12 mins) of Coué teaching his method: recorded at the Columbia Gramophone
Company, New York, 10 February 1923
Emile Coué’s Own Method of Self-Mastery: four sides: serial nos. A-3840 (sides 1 and 2) and A-3841 (sides 3 and 4).
URL = http://tinyurl.com/gspq7lo
La Maîtrise de Soi-Même par L’autosuggestion Consciente: four sides: serial nos. A-3842 (sides 1 and 2) and A-3843
(sides 3 and 4).
URL = http://tinyurl.com/zmsbfsp

Single-Reel short film (approx. 12 mins) of Coué teaching his method

The Message of Emile Coué (1923): directed by Earl Hurd (1884-1940), and released in the USA by Educational Films,
Inc. on 18 February 1923.
[Extensive research has failed to locate any extant copy.]
Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 25

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Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action 26
Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 1

Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism,

Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion

Lindsay B. Yeates, PhD

School of Humanities & Languages, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, NSW Australia

Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis,

Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.28-54.

Abstract
The Coué method is routinely dismissed and universally trivialised as nothing more
than a hand-clasp, unwarranted optimism, and a ‘mantra’. Rather than relying on
incorrect, inadequate, misleading, and otherwise unreliable accounts, Coué’s own
descriptions are exhumed, presented, examined, and employed to reveal the
rational, systematic structure of top-down theories, concepts, explanations,
terminology, and representations embedded within the complex aggregate of
efficacious ego-strengthening activities called the Coué method. Consistent with
Coué’s emphasis on orthopraxia, simple explanatory models are presented to
facilitate a clearer, realistic, and far more productive understanding of the intricacies
of the intellectual mechanism underpinning the remarkable approach that Coué
conceived, meticulously developed, and incrementally refined over more than two
decades of intense daily hypnotic and hypnotherapeutic experiences with a large
population of subjects (severally and collectively)—and, further, as lecturer, teacher
and demonstrator of his work to audiences of, often, many more than a thousand
individuals.

KEY WORDS: autosuggestion, dominant ideas, history of hypnotism,

hypnotherapy, hypnotic suggestion, self-hypnosis

NOTE to the Reader

A small number of textual errors and omissions in the final
published version of this paper have been corrected.
Otherwise, the original paper’s content remains unchanged.
[Also, please note that, for the reader’s convenience, the
original paper’s pagination is indicated as {1}, etc.]
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 2

{28}
[Continued from Part I]
Having examined the history of Coué’s méthod in Part I (Yeates, 2016a), we now move to the
representations embedded within the method itself, before examining the clinical delivery of the entire
process in Part III (Yeates, 2016c).

1. Preliminary

1.1 Orthopraxia vs. Orthodoxia

According to Sokal and Sneath (1963, p.20) the preference for ‘top-down’ taxonomies over those
constructed ‘bottom-up’ from ‘commonsense’ (rather than ‘scientific’) criteria, comes from Darwin’s
stress on descent from common ancestors (e.g., Darwin, 1859, pp.111-126). Whilst Coué constructed his
accounts ‘bottom-up’, he presented them as ‘top-down’ theory-driven practices in order to instill {29}
confidence and ensure the highest level of orthopraxia, ‘correctness of behaviour’ (whilst ignoring issues
of orthodoxia, ‘correctness of thought’).

2. Reference and Ambiguity

2.1 Homonymy and Equivocation

Most ambiguity comes from unintentional equivocation (‘calling two different things by the same
name’) or homonymy (‘different words with the same spelling’). For example, with scale (‘John scales a
fish’, ‘Michael plays scales on his tuba’, ‘John uses scales to weigh a fish’, ‘the scale of a disaster’, etc.) on
its own, one can’t identify scale’s intended referent—one must know the context in which it is used.
Some examples of equivocation due to lexical ambiguity are:
• the French teacher: ‘a teacher from France’, or ‘a person that teaches French’?
• mind-cure: ‘using the power of the mind to cure a real disorder’ (see Bucknill, 1855, p.161) or, as some
might have it, ‘curing a deviant mind’?
• psychotherapy: ‘using the psyche as a tool to therapise a real disorder’ (see Dendy, 1853) or, as some
might have it, ‘therapising a deviant psyche’?
• cognitive therapy: ‘using the cognitions as a tool to therapise a real disorder’ (see Frank, 1959, p.3) or, as
some might have it, ‘therapising deviant cognitions’?, etc.

2.2 Polysemy and Ambiguity

With homonymy (un-related meanings: bank = ‘riparian boundary’, ‘financial institution’) or polysemy
(related meanings: bank = ‘financial institution’, ‘a building’, ‘rely upon’), although listeners can’t
identify a term’s unique referent without additional information, many do identify a referent— but,
unfortunately, the wrong referent—and interpret the utterance in the wrong way.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 3

2.3 “Hypnosis”
A technical term has precision only to the extent that it has a unique referent. Confusion reigns if the
same term is used to denote different referents. Ignoring the medico-Latin hypnosis, ‘natural sleep’,
Bernheim’s grossly inappropriate term ‘hypnosis’ (never used in English before Kingsbury, 1891, pp.160-
162), is variously, misleadingly and indiscriminately applied throughout the current literature to, at
least, the following substantially different referents:
(a) an act of hypnotisation: viz., Braid’s hypnotise;
(b) ‘a hypnotic state’ (one of an infinite number of distinctly different ‘hypnotic states’): viz., Braid’s
hypnotism (a consequence of being hypnotised by a hypnotist);
(c) ‘the (one-size-fits-all) hypnotic state’ (a non-Braid, non-Moll notion);
(d) any non-therapeutic hypnotism-centred activity;
(e) any therapeutic hypnotism-centred activity;
{30}
(f) ‘hypnotherapy’ in general: viz., Braid’s psycho-physiology (“the whole of [those] phenomena
which result from the reciprocal actions of mind and matter upon each other”);
(g) an entire discipline: viz., Braid’s neurypnology (“the doctrine of the influence of dominant ideas
in controlling mental and physical action”). (See Braid, 1843, pp.12-13, 1855, p.855; and Moll,
1890, pp.209-213)

3. The Mind

3.1 Metaphor
Given that there’s no agreement on the precise physical location, constituent structure, or functional
capacity of ‘the mind’, it’s best to treat ‘the mind’ as a somewhat capacious hold-all metaphor, and as a
natural kind (Quine, 1970) that has as many members as there are individual human beings. This theory-
neutral approach of treating ‘the mind’ as an abstract metaphor also allows us to avoid the diverting
questions of whether explanatory divisions, such as unconscious, subconscious, etc., actually exist in
some substantial way, or only exist conceptually in our thoughts about them. When contrasted with ‘artificial
concepts’ like ‘time zones’, however, it’s obvious that ‘the mind’ is a ‘natural concept’, like ‘trees’ and
‘cats’; and, because ‘natural concepts’ are readily and universally understood they demand no unique,
coherent set of defining features (Kihlstrom, 1992, p.304).

3.2 Mind & Brain

Although the physico-chemical engine (‘the brain’) and the entity through which we experience mental
events (‘the mind’) are inextricably linked, no precise set of correlations between the brain’s structures
and the gross mental aspects of what goes on inside our heads is ever likely to emerge. Prochaska’s
experiments in the 1780s demonstrated that voluntary action was brain-based; whilst reflex action was
spine-based. In 1842, by analogy with the stomach-based process of “digestion”, Engledue spoke of
brain-based “cerebration” (pp.7-17); and, a little later, Braid asserted:
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 4

I look upon the brain simply as the organ of the mind, and the bodily organs as the
instruments for upholding the integrity of the bodily frame, and for acquiring and
extending its communion with external nature in our present state of existence.
[And, moreover, it is my view] that the mind acts on matter, and is acted on by matter,
according to the quality and quantity, and relative disposition of cerebral development.
(Braid, 1843, p.81)

For Carpenter, hypnotic phenomena were due to the mind being fully occupied by operator-suggested
ideas, and were generated by means of an “ideo-motor principle of action” (1852, p.153). Carpenter (later)
spoke of “unconscious cerebration” (1853a, pp.818-829) to identify other hidden “reasoning processes”
(e.g., suddenly recalling forgotten names). Following Noble’s suggestion, Braid spoke of a mono-{31}ideo-
dynamic principle being responsible for hypnotic phenomena. The German proto-psychiatrist, Johann
Heinroth (c.1818) extended the philosophical concept of akrasia (‘weakness of will’) to acting in certain
ways (e.g., eating chocolate) despite explicit intentions not to do so; and another German proto-
psychiatrist, Rudolf Leubuscher (c.1838) spoke of aboulia (‘inability to act’), where one’s body failed to
respond to mental commands (such as moving one’s arm).

So, different people, with different theories, applied terms in different ways, to different sets of ‘facts’,
to make different distinctions between aspects of ‘the mind’ for different reasons.

4. Dominant Ideas

4.1 Thomas Brown, M.D.

A physician renowned for his structured thinking, diagnostic skills, and prodigious memory, Thomas
Brown (1778-1820), held the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University from 1810 until his
death in 1820 (see Welsh, 1825). Rather than pronouncing how he found things to be, he taught how to go
about thinking about things.

Braid studied with Brown, and it was from Brown that he adopted the term “suggestion” in the sense
applied by hypnotists today (see Yeates, 2013). A confused version of Brown’s work was posthumously
published in 1820 (a condensed version in 1827). A fully corrected edition was published in 1851 (Brown,
1851). In one form or another, it was the most popular philosophy text in the English-speaking world for
almost 50 years.

4.2 Mental Physiology

Brown’s enterprise of “analyz[ing] the whole into parts, classif[ying] those parts, and describ[ing] the
dynamics of their interaction” (Dixon, 2001, p.299), was to establish a ‘science of mind’, which Brown
denoted “mental physiology”—“the physiology of the mind, considered as a substance capable of the
various modifications, or states, which constitute, as they succeed each other, the phenomena of thought
and feeling” (1851, §.II, p.5).
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 5

4.3 Suggestion and the Philosopher

Asserting that ‘the mind’ could not exist in more than one arrangement (“state”) at any one time,
Brown examined trains of thought, and the way that later ideas were systematically suggested by earlier
ideas, from two perspectives:
(a) mental chemistry: scientific analysis and reduction of the complex mental states into their simpler
components—by an “intellectual analyst” (§.XI, p.64)—thus, “intellectual chemistry”; and;
(b) mental physics: discovery of regularities and consistencies through which mental states
succeeded one another through “the observation and arrangement of the sequences of
phenomena, as respectively antecedent and consequent” (§.IX, p.53), thus, “intellectual physics”.
{32}

4.4 Emergent Properties

Anticipating Mill’s “heteropathic laws of causation” (Mill, 1882, III.X4, pp.315-317) and Lewes’s
“emergent properties” (Lewes, 1875, p.412), Brown noted that, as in chemistry—where compounds have
properties that can’t be predicted from their constituent ingredients, and where certain compounds,
once constructed, are indivisible—certain mental ‘states’, consequent upon complex changes in mental
physiology, are irreversible (§.XI, p.64).

4.5 Suggestion and the Physician

Brown studied the conditions we now call psychosomatic disorders, especially the “Swiss Disease”
phenomenon (denoted nostalgia, ‘homesickness’, by Johannes Hofner in 1688)—a deep melancholy
afflicting the Vatican’s mercenary Swiss Guard, the only known cure for which was a permanent return
to the soldier’s home village (see Anspach, 1934; Rosen, 1975; Nikelly, 2004; and Sedikides, et al., 2004).
He was just as interested in somato-psychic influences on the mind as he was in psycho-somatic
influences on the body: “Certain states of our bodily organs are directly followed by certain states or
affections of our mind; certain states or affections of our mind are directly followed by certain states of
our bodily organs” (Brown, 1851, §.XVII, p.106).

4.6 Suggestion and the Poet

Displaying an enthusiasm for poetry far beyond his talent, Brown published many works (1804; 1808;
1814; 1815; 1816; 1817; 1818; 1819); but, apart from one incomplete item (1820), he published no
philosophical works in his lifetime. Given his brilliance as a philosopher, many were greatly upset that
he wasted so much time, over so many years, producing what many of his contemporaries considered to
be such second-rate verse, when he could have been writing detailed accounts of his philosophy:

The frequency with which the poetical works of Dr. Brown succeeded each other began
to excite remark.
And while the devotion of his mind to poetry, to the neglect, as was supposed, of
philosophy, was objected to him by his enemies almost as a moral defect in his character,
even those who were inclined to judge more favourably, regretted it as a weakness that
materially injured his reputation.
(Welsh, 1825, p.393)
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 6

Given the evocative characteristics of poetry it seems inevitable that Brown, the poet manqué, would
become so deeply interested, as a philosopher, in the regularities with which ideas presented to the
mind (“suggesting ideas”) became dominant and, then, via the “suggesting principle”, suggested others
(“suggested ideas”).

4.7 Braid’s Position

In 1855, Braid explained the “mono-ideo-dynamic, or unconscious muscular action from a dominant idea
possessing the mind” to the British Association for the Advancement of Science:
{33}

… when the attention of man or animal is deeply engrossed or absorbed by a given idea
associated with movement, a current of nervous force is sent into the muscles which
produces a corresponding motion, not only without any conscious effort of volition, but
even in opposition to volition, in many instances; and hence they seem to be irresistibly
drawn, or spellbound, according to the purport of the dominant idea or impression in the
mind of each at the time. The volition is prostrate; the individual is so completely mono-
ideised, or under the influence of the dominant idea, as to be incapable of exerting an
efficient restraining or opposing power to the dominant idea …
(Braid, 1856, p.120)

5. Regularities, and “hypothesis non fingo”

5.1 Isaac Newton

In 1713, remarking “hypothesis non fingo” (lit. ‘I feign no hypothesis [as to its mechanism]’), Isaac
Newton wrote that, despite having described law-like regularities of gravity at considerable length, he
would not speculate on their underlying cause (Cohen, 1962; 1999, pp.274-277).

5.2 Thomas Brown

In Brown’s account of trains of thought, he said that, whilst he had detailed the “antecedents and
consequents which succeed[ed] each other in regular series” and, while an analogous set of mental
forces were obviously behind those regularities, he would adopt Newton’s hypothesis non fingo, and
refuse to speculate on the forces’ structures (1851, §.IX, p.52).

5.3 James Braid

In 1843, Braid remarked that hypnotic phenomena ensued from ‘hypnotic states’ because that’s just
how things were: “it is a law of the animal economy that such effects should follow such [a] condition of
mind and body”. And, asserting that “this is a fact which cannot be controverted”, he refused to
speculate further on underlying mechanisms:

As to the modus operandi we may never be able to account for that in a manner so as to
satisfy all objections; but neither can we tell why the law of gravitation should act as
experience has taught us it does act.
Still, as our ignorance of the cause of gravitation acting as it is known to do, does not
prevent us profiting by an accumulation of the facts known as to its results, so ought not
our ignorance of the whole laws of the hypnotic state to prevent our studying it
practically, and applying it beneficially, when we have the power of doing so.
(Braid, 1843, p.32)
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 7

5.4 William Carpenter

For Carpenter, Braid’s hypnotic phenomena were produced by ‘dominant ideas’:

[they] consist in the occupation of the mind by the ideas which have been suggested to it,
and in the influence which these ideas exert upon {34} the actions of the body … It is not
really the will of the operator which controls the sensations of the subject; but the
suggestion of the operator which excites a corresponding idea … [Such ideas] not only
[produce nonvolitional] muscular movements, but other bodily changes [as well] …
(Carpenter, 1852, p.148)

To reconcile the hypnotic phenomena “with the known laws of nervous action” and, without
elaborating on mechanism (hypothesis non fingo!), Carpenter offered a metaphorical “ideo-motor principle
of action” to explain “the whole class of purely emotional movements [that] depend upon the excitation
of certain states of mind by external impressions” (Carpenter, 1852, p.151).

Maintaining his central, ‘dominant idea’ position—“I endeavour to rid the mind at once of all ideas but
one, and to fix that one in the mind even after passing into the hypnotic state” (Braid, 1843, p.50)—Braid
adopted Carpenter’s metaphor, and began speaking of a mono-ideo-motor principle of action.

5.5 Daniel Noble

In 1853, Noble suggested that ideo-motor was too narrow a term, and that ideo-dynamic “was
applicable to a wider range of phenomena” (Noble, 1853, p.71; 1854, p.642). Both Carpenter and Braid
agreed; and from that time, Braid spoke of a mono-ideo-dynamic principle of action generating hypnotic
phenomena (e.g., Braid, 1855, p.852).

5.6 Hippolyte Bernheim

In 1891, Bernheim offered a “law of ideodynamism” (Sandor, 1980, pp.22-32): “every suggested idea
which is accepted becomes an action, that is, a sensation, an image, or a movement”. No-one knows the
“organization [of the] laborious unconscious cerebration work [that takes place] without our
awareness”, said Bernheim; or how “unconscious cerebration [actually generates] a visible and tangible
product of the mind”. All we know is “the idea or initial sensation (the port of entry [‘la porte d’entrée’])
and the definitive conception (the result, the port of exit [‘la porte de sortie’])”. A suggestion “is made”;
“the impression becomes an idea”; “the idea is accepted by the brain” in an inwardly directed
“centripetal” process (“phénomène centripéte”); “as the result of the suggestion”, it converts into an
outwardly directed “centrifugal” process (“phénomène centrifuge”) and is realised by “the exteriorization
of the idea” (hypothesis non fingo!). Bernheim offered four examples (Sandor, 1980, pp.29-32):
(a) The idea becomes a sensation: “the idea that one has fleas produces a real itching”.
(b) The idea becomes an image or visual sensation: “a true hallucination”.
(c) The idea becomes a visceral sensation: e.g., vomiting after ingesting water that one has been told is
an emetic.
(d) The idea becomes movement: e.g., the movement of a hand-held pendulum (see Chevreul, 1854;
Spitz and Marcuard, 2001).
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 8

{35}

5.7 Émile Coué and Charles Baudouin

Sporadically, all throughout his work, Coué would refer (indirectly) to an auto-suggestive agency
through which ‘dominant’ ideas were realised—e.g., “Every thought entirely filling our mind becomes
true for us and tends to transform itself into action” (1922a, p.15)—and Baudouin chose to speak
(specifically) of an “ideoreflex power” (1920, p.26).

6. Scientific Hypnotism
By definition (see Weitzenhoffer, 2000, passim), scientific hypnotism centres on the delivery of
‘suggestions’ to hypnotised subjects, intended to elicit:
(a) the further stimulation of partially active mental states/physiological processes;
(b) the awakening of dormant mental states/physiological processes;
(c) the activation of latent mental states/physiological processes;
(d) alterations in existing perceptions/thoughts/feelings/behaviours; and or
(e) entirely new perceptions/thoughts/feelings/behaviours.

6.1 Pre-Induction Preparation

Prior to inducing hypnotism (especially an initial hypnotisation) the hypnotist must:
(a) establish a strong rapport with the subject (‘rapport’, once established, increases the hypnotist’s
‘prestige’, and, thus, the ‘prestige’ of their suggestions);
(b) ensure that all queries, issues, fears, superstitions, and misconceptions have been articulated,
clearly understood, and satisfactorily dealt with;
(c) create a positive attitude to the subject’s choice of hypnotherapy; and
(d) confirm the efficacy and appropriateness of the chosen procedure.

Obviously, anyone voluntarily presenting for treatment already has a significant level of response
expectancy (see Kirsch, 1997), and is far more likely to respond to suggestion:

When a patient comes for treatment, and is really in search of health, no matter how little
he may appear to be in harmony with the suggestions given, his very search for health
creates a sympathy for suggestions, since he would really like to believe and accept them.
(Parkyn, 1900, p.15)

6.2 Hypnotic Suggestion

One is only a ‘hypnotist’ if one induces ‘hypnotism’; and an idea is only a ‘suggestion’ if it ‘suggests’
something. We can stipulate (i) that ‘suggestions’ are goal-directed communications (e.g., Freud,
1891/1966, p.111), (ii) that ‘suggestion’ is the ideodynamic means through which ‘suggestions’ are
realised (e.g., Baudouin, 1920, p.26), and (iii) that, as Janet (1920, pp.284-285) noted, the critical feature is
not the making of a ‘suggestion’, it’s the taking of the ‘suggestion’. Furthermore, ‘suggestions’ have four
temporal dimensions:
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 9

(a) pre-hypnotic suggestions, delivered prior to the formal induction;

(b) suggestions for within-hypnotic influence, to elicit specific within-session outcomes;
{36}
(c) suggestions for post-hypnotic influence, to elicit specific post-session outcomes:
(i) immediate influence (“and, on leaving here today, you’ll…”);
(ii) shorter-term influence (“and, each time you’re…”);
(iii) longer-term influence (“and, as time passes, you’ll increasingly…”); or
(iv) specific-moment influence (Bernheim’s suggestions à longue échéance, ‘suggestions to be
realised after a long interval’), which are (i) intended “to produce a particular effect at a
designated later hour”, (ii) have “no influence before the appointed hour”, (iii) nor “after
it had expired” (Barrows, 1896, pp.22-23), or
(d) post-hypnotic suggestions, delivered to dehypnotised-but-not-yet-completely-reoriented subjects.
There is a strong tradition that these suggestions are the most efficacious.

7. Explanatory Models

7.1 The “Imaginarium”

From the decision to remain theory-neutral—and the further, productive decision to treat ‘the mind’ as
an abstract, metaphorical concept—we can graphically represent ‘the mind’ and its inter-connections as
displayed in Fig.1; and then, from that understanding, and by actively employing one of Lakoff and
Johnston’s “container metaphors” (1980, pp.29-32) we can also conceptualise a dedicated, metaphorical
“container of ideation”, situated deep within ‘the mind’, which we will designate “the Imaginarium”, as
represented in Fig.2.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 10

{37}

7.2 Dominant Ideas

We can now represent the ‘the mind’ in its normal ‘state’—with the Imaginarium replete with all sorts
of random ideas, directed at the functions in all sorts of ways—as shown in Fig.3. This move, in its turn,
allows us to represent the special situation of the Imaginarium holding one, single, ‘dominant idea’
(‘dominant’ because it has saturated the cognitive environment of the mind) that influences all of the
functions in some symmetrical way, as shown in Fig.4.

The representation in Fig.4 highlights the similarity between different sorts of ‘dominant idea’—the
negative/bizarre ideation of depression and schizophrenia; the notion “I must save myself ” on hearing
“Fire!” in a crowded theatre; the immersion in listening to music; the recall of long-forgotten things on
seeing an old snapshot; the hope that the champion’s now-airborne shot will score the winning goal
with only three seconds left in the match, etc.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 11

{38}

7.3 The Act of Hypnotisation

Hypnotism significantly increases the closeness between psychological and physiological processes
and brings many (otherwise) non-volitional physiological processes under volitional control. Given that
an idea is “the mind existing in a certain state” (Brown, 1851, §.XXV, p.157), successful hypnotisation
increases the potency of particular ideas in two mutually interactive ways: (i) subjects attend more to
their current ideation, and (ii) attend less to other impressions/stimuli/sensations.

A major goal (if not the major goal) of hypnotisation is the deliberate, intentional creation of an
Imaginarium that is of such size, robustness, and impermeability that whatever ideation it contains is
immune from outside influence; and, moreover, an Imaginarium of such volume that subsequent
hypnotism-centred intervention can proceed with minimum cognitive effort and maximum efficacy. The
cognitive and physiological consequences of the ‘the mind’ being in the ‘hypnotic state’, is represented in
Fig.5—a much larger Imaginarium, and a far stronger and far more active connectivity between ‘the
mind’ and the various functions/processes.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 12

{39}

7.4 Consequences of Hypnotisation

With a larger Imaginarium, random thoughts become more intense (which explains why hypnotism is
contraindicated in schizophrenia), as shown in Fig.6; and a ‘dominant idea’ has a much stronger
presence in a hypnotised subject, as shown in Fig.7.

The extent to which particular ideation is of such unequivocal clarity, intensity, and in occupation of
such a proportion of the Imaginarium’s volume, is the extent to which it is dominant, and the extent to
which a particular idea saturates the microcognitive environment of ‘the mind’ (i.e., is ‘dominant’) is a product
of four mutually potentiating factors:
(a) Imaginarium volume: comparatively larger Imaginarium volumes are produced by more-
appropriate-to-task hypnotisation processes;
(b) linguistic clarity and cognitive simplicity: an idea’s simple, unequivocal clarity eliminates mind-
diverting criticism/analysis (Yeates, 2002, 2014a, 2014b);
(c) proportion of Imaginarium occupied: the extent to which the making of the suggestion has resulted
in the subsequent taking of the suggestion; and;
(d) extent to which the idea is expressed in positive terms: (“be still” vs. “don’t move”, etc.) promotes the
misattribution of the source of the suggestion to the subject’s own ideation—again, significantly
reducing mind-diverting criticism/analysis.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 13

{40}

7.5 The Ideodynamic Principle of Action

The ideodynamic principle of action displayed in Fig.8 is consistent with the parenthetical comment made
in 1923, by Coué, when directing a subject’s hand-clasp experience:

[In this case] it is not what I shall say which will take place, but what the [subject] will
think. [If they think what I ask them to think,] it will take place.
If they think the contrary, the contrary will take place.
I don’t try to oblige people to make these experiments. It is no hypnotism, it is no suggestion
on my part, it is only autosuggestion on the part of the person …
(Coué, 1923a, p.120, emphasis added)

In order for something to be ‘a stimulus’ or ‘a suggestion’, it must be perceived and interpreted by the
subject: the stimulus must have created a percept. Then, according to Brown (§.XXXIV, p.217, etc.), this
“suggestive idea” is transformed into a “suggested idea” by an (otherwise unexplained) “suggestive
principle” (hypothesis non fingo!); and, then, the “suggested idea” is converted into a corresponding
ideomotor, ideosensory, or ideoaffective action, by the ideodynamic principle of action—a process which
then, in its turn, generates the response. All these activities are a consequence of the ideation held in the
Imaginarium.
Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 14

{41}
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 15

{42}
Coué identified two types of self-suggestion: (i) intentional, “reflective auto-suggestion” made by
deliberate and conscious effort, and (ii) involuntary “spontaneous auto-suggestion”, a “natural
phenomenon of our mental life … which takes place without conscious effort [and has its effect] with an
intensity proportional to the keenness of [our] attention” (Baudouin, 1920, pp.33-34). Baudouin
identified three different sources of spontaneous suggestion:

A. Instances belonging to the representative domain (sensations, mental images, dreams,

visions, memories, opinions, and all intellectual phenomena);
B. Instances belonging to the affective domain (joy or sorrow, emotions, sentiments,
tendencies, passions);
C. Instances belonging to the active or motor domain (actions, volitions, desires, gestures,
movements at the periphery or in the interior of the body, functional or organic
modifications).
(Baudouin, 1920, p.41)

From Fig.8, the continuously misrepresented and generally misinterpreted (but entirely correct) claim,
that all ‘suggested’ things are ultimately self-suggested, can now be clearly and unequivocally understood in
the way it was intended—e.g., according to William Brown:

Hetero-suggestion [is] suggestion implanted in a patient by another person [and] auto-

suggestion [is] a suggestion implanted in a patient by himself.
In so far as all forms of suggestion must be accepted by the patient himself in order to take
effect, all suggestion may be called auto-suggestion.
(Brown, 1922, p.103)

8. The Selves, Will, and Imagination

Created to impose order on randomness and enhance a subject’s orthopraxia, Coué’s simple
explanations were not designed to expound speculative theories to an academic audience.

Coué shared the theoretical position that Hudson had expressed in his Law of Psychic Phenomena
(1893)—a significant and important work based upon Hudson’s extensive study of hypnotic
phenomena, the hypnotic state, and mental therapeutics (which had greatly influenced the
representations featured in the American correspondence course)—that our “mental organization” was
such that it seemed as if we had “two minds, each endowed with separate and distinct attributes and
powers; [with] each capable, under certain conditions, of independent action” (p.25); and, for
explanatory purposes, it was entirely irrelevant, argued Hudson, whether we actually had “two distinct
minds”, whether we only seemed to be “endowed with a dual mental organization”, or whether we actually
had “one mind [possessed of] certain attributes and powers under some conditions, and certain other
attributes and powers under other conditions” (pp.25-26).
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 16

{43}

8.1 Conscious vs. Unconscious Self

Coué had no time for Freud or his theories (Rapp, 1987, p.27). He consistently used conscious and
unconscious in their everyday sense of something done with alert awareness (or not). Often referring to
‘the mind’ and ‘the state of mind of a person’, he distinguished between a ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious
self ’ within all of us. Later, he was prone to speak of ‘the unconscious’ in preference to Baudouin’s ‘the
subconscious’, from a view that his subjects might imply that the ‘sub-’ in subconscious indicated a
somewhat lesser entity.

Others, with different goals, made other distinctions: e.g., Hudson spoke of “objective” and “subjective
minds” (1893, p. 26); Parkyn spoke of “voluntary” and “involuntary minds” (1900, p.14); Quackenbos
spoke of “objective” and “subjective selves” (1900, p.5); Atkinson spoke of “conscious” and “sub-
conscious minds” (1909, p.180); and so on.

8.2 The Will vs. The Imagination

Given the universal misrepresentation of Coué’s terminology, it must be emphatically stressed that,
when Coué spoke of “the will” and “the imagination”, he used the term ‘will’ in the sense of it being a
trait, rather than a virtue (see Kugelmann, 2013, passim, on the concept of ‘willpower’), and used the term
‘imagination’ in the simpler, vernacular sense of how one generally supposes that things are (‘how I
imagine things to be’), and not in the far more scientific sense of the capacity to form internal ideas (or
images) of situations (or objects) that are not physically present. Baudouin (1920, pp.274-275), who
studied with Henri Bergson, thought the relation between Coué’s concepts of “imagination” and “will”
was the same as that which existed between Bergson’s concepts of “intuition” and “intelligence”,
respectively.

8.3 Coué’s Representation

Given that his typical audience could easily distinguish between alert activities, such as counting
goats, and unconscious, non-volitional activities, such as digesting food, Coué spoke of four significant
dimensions of human performance:
(a) awareness: some processes were ‘conscious’; others were ‘unconscious’;
(b) causation: some actions were ‘volitional’; others were ‘non-volitional’;
(c) agency: the ‘conscious self’ performed volitional acts; the ‘unconscious self’ performed non-
volitional acts; and
(d) faculties: “the will” and “the imagination” (he used these expansive terms (i) to distinguish the
conscious process that directs our voluntary movements from that which (unconsciously)
directs our involuntary movements; or, in other contexts, and in a far more abstract way, (ii) to
distinguish between rational knowledge and one’s unconsciously-held beliefs, self-evaluations,
non-negotiable values, etc.).
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 17

8.4 Coué’s Approach

Self-suggestion clearly existed, Coué said, but it was more than just asserting something. An idea had
to be unconsciously ‘taken’, and converted into an {44} autosuggestion, before it could have an effect. It
wasn’t just asserting, “I want X to happen”; the ‘unconscious self ’ would respond, “You want it, but you
won’t get it!”. With such an assertion vs. counter-assertion clash, not only would you fail to obtain
whatever was demanded, but, due to the strength of the abrupt (unconscious) rejoinder, you would
obtain the exact opposite (1912, p.31-32).

This crucial observation was precisely why, he said, all efforts to treat “moral affections” by
“rehabilitating the will” were useless; instead, one had to “train the imagination”. His consistent success,
where others consistently failed, he said, was entirely due to this subtle difference. Therefore, just as one
must be taught to read, or write, or play the piano, one must be taught how to practise efficacious
conscious autosuggestion.

In summary, his position was based on the following principles:

(a) one’s mind can’t hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time;
(b) only one idea could be ‘dominant’ at any one time;
(c) an idea, once ‘dominant’, is transformed into an actual physical or mental state;
(d) “the imagination” is more powerful than rational knowledge;
(e) any effort to conquer an idea by exerting “the will” only makes that idea more powerful; and
(f) once a ‘dominant’ idea occupies the Imaginarium, it remains there unchanged until it is replaced
by another.

8.5 Coué’s Four Observations

In his first lecture (1912, p.31), Coué articulated four central principles concerning the relation between
consciously suggested and unconsciously held ideas:
(a) Whenever “the will” and “the imagination” are antagonistic, “the imagination” always wins
out, without exception.
(b) (By analogy with the inverse square law) whenever there’s a conflict between “the will” and “the
imagination”, the power of “the imagination” is always (metaphorically) in direct proportion to
the square of “the will”.
(c) (By analogy with arithmetic and geometric progressions) whenever there’s an agreement between
“the will” and “the imagination”, rather than (metaphorically) adding to one another, the two
of them (metaphorically) multiply each other.
(d) “The imagination” can be directed.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 18

9. Baudouin’s “Laws”

9.1 Charles Baudouin

Charles Baudouin (1893-1963), a Nancy-born psychoanalyst, and a sometime student of Henri
Bergson, Edouard Claparède (and Pierre Bouvet), Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud,
established the International Institute of Psychagogy and Psychotherapy in 1924. Coué had treated
Baudouin’s mother on at least one {45} occasion (Orton, 1935, p.94); and, before leaving to study in
Geneva (c.1912), Baudouin spent 18-months observing and studying with Coué at his Nancy clinic. He
was a member of Coué’s Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology for several decades.

9.2 “Suggestion and Autosuggestion”

In 1920, Baudouin was awarded a Ph.D. by Geneva University for his dissertation, Suggestion and
Autosuggestion. Parts of that dissertation, plus copious material from his own lectures, and accounts of
his post-Coué theories and practices (e.g., Baudouin’s use of a pendulum, pp.208-217), were published in
French and English. Originally, the English translation sold few copies; finally, based on good reviews, it
continued to sell well for the next fifty years (Unwin, 1976, p.216).

While slightly modified versions of his 1912 lecture, plus case studies, snippets from lectures,
demonstrations, and interactions with individuals (1922a, 1922b, 1922e, 1923a, etc.), or ‘ghost-written’
newspaper articles (1923b), were published in his name, Coué wrote nothing, and left that task to others.
Fortunately, buried deep within Baudouin’s (otherwise entirely Coué-irrelevant) ponderous tome are
several ‘nuggets’ containing valuable and important observations about Coué’s work (viz., 1920, pp.114-
118, 153-164, and 257-258).

9.3 “Laws”
Baudouin was convinced that Coué’s approach embodied six principles (of such systematic regularity
that he called four of them “Laws”). His account of these principles, which have been extensively
disseminated over the years (mostly in truncated, incomplete, inaccurate, or imprecise versions),
continues to influence hypnotherapeutic theory and practice today.

9.3.1 First Principle

The Law of Concentrated Attention (loi de l’attention concentrée): whenever one’s attention is
concentrated on a particular idea over and over again, the idea tends to spontaneously realise itself
(p.114)—once again, Thomas Brown’s ‘dominant idea’.

9.3.2 Second Principle

The Law of Auxiliary Emotion (loi de l’émotion auxiliaire): one’s attention is far more intensely
concentrated on an idea that is associated with a strong emotion: “When, for one reason or other, an idea
is enveloped in a powerful emotion, there is more likelihood that this idea will be suggestively realized”
(p.114). Baudouin offers “stage fright”, and the amnesia of examination candidates as examples:
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 19

A candidate who knows his subject perfectly well may suddenly be stricken with
suggestive amnesia.
In essence there is no difference between this and the forgetfulness of a proper name in
ordinary conversation; but the examinee’s amnesia is far more intense, its higher degree
corresponding with the greater intensity of the emotion.
Violent emotion appears to heighten the force of suggestions of any kind.
Intense fear may thus have two very different results, the divergence {46} depending on
the nature of the idea present in the mind.
Fear may glue the feet to the ground. A motor dashes round the corner when you are
walking in the middle of the road; you are afraid you will not be able to get out of the
way in time, and consequently you cannot move a step.
On the other hand, fear may restore the use of his legs to a paralytic. In 1915, in one of the
air-raids on Paris, a paralyzed woman living on the fifth storey found herself in the
porter’s lodge on the ground floor, without knowing how she had got there; a bomb had
exploded close at hand, and she had fled downstairs in a moment; the idea of flight at all
hazards had seized her mind, and under the influence of the violent emotion this idea
had been transformed into action.
Emotion, it might be said, instantaneously raises an idea to the boiling point, intensifies it
to the degree when it can become an effective force.
(1920, pp.115-116)

This “Law” also (implicitly) states that, whenever two ideas co-exist, (i) an idea linked to an emotion
will ‘outrank’ any other, and (ii) an idea linked to a ‘stronger’ emotion, such as fear, will always
‘outrank’ ideas linked to ‘weaker” emotions, such as pleasure. As a matter of interest, Weitzenhoffer
(1989) suggested that three additional “Laws” applied to clashes between mutually antagonistic and,
yet, otherwise equal suggestions:
(i) The Law of Temporal Precedence: the first suggestion given “will have precedence over the
others [involved in the clash]” (p.77).
(ii) The Law of Impressional Precedence: “the suggestion being impressed the most strongly has
precedence. ‘Impressed’ means the extent, complexity, stability, and permanence of the
associations that are formed between a suggestion and already existing determinants of the
suggested effect” (pp.77-78).
(iii) The Law of Depth Precedence: “the suggestion associated with the greater depth of hypnosis
… will have precedence over the others” (pp.78).

9.3.3 Third Principle

The Law of Reverse Effort (loi de l’effort converti): explained as follows:
When an idea imposes itself on the mind to such an extent as to give rise to a suggestion, all the
conscious efforts which the subject makes in order to counteract this suggestion are not merely
without the desired effect, but they actually run counter to the subject’s conscious wishes and tend
to intensify the suggestion.
The efforts are spontaneously reversed so as to reinforce the effect of the dominant idea.
Whenever anyone is in the state of mind, “I should like to, but I cannot”, he may wish as
much as he pleases; but the harder he tries, the less he is able.
(1920, p.116, emphasis in original).
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 20

{47}
The more you try to stop thinking about some thing, the more it will persist (Wegner, 1989, p.64). To
verify you’re no longer thinking of “it”, you must think of “it” once again (activating the “Law of
Concentrated Attention”). This “Law” reminds us that, “conscious efforts to counteract a suggestion
only serve to intensify its action [which is, of course,] the principle behind such Ericksonian-like
utterances as: ‘The more you try to resist entering hypnosis, the more relaxed you become’”
(Edmonston, 1986, p.181). It also strongly warns against making conscious effort to realise suggestions;
and—from the self-evident fact that often-realised noxious autosuggestions are only realised “because
they are made without effort”—Coué stipulated that, “when you make conscious autosuggestions, do it
naturally, simply, with conviction, and above all without any effort” (1922b, p.36):

I cannot too strongly insist that in the practice of auto-suggestion the exercise of will
must be strictly avoided, except in the initial phase of directing or guiding the imagination
along the desired lines.
This is absolutely the only manifestation of will necessary, or even desirable.
Any other voluntary effort is positively harmful, and will most certainly have an effect
contrary to the one desired.
(Coue, 1923b, p.14, emphasis added)

9.3.4 Fourth Principle

The Law of Subconscious Teleology (loi de la finalité subconsciente): in relation to hypnotic suggestion
and, even, mental imagery, the most important of all: “When the end has been suggested the subconscious
finds a means for its realization” (1920, p.117). Once a suggestion has ‘taken’, the mind engages in goal-
directed behaviour to realise the goal. The physical, physiological, or biochemical means through which
goals are to be reached must never be suggested. An outcome is suggested; and, then, it’s left entirely to
the subject’s ‘unconscious self ’ to select the most efficient, effective, appropriate, and permanent way to
attain that end.

9.3.5 Fifth Principle

Spontaneous autosuggestion is a phenomenon of everyday occurrence … [and is, at least,

as significant as] the classic form of hypnotic suggestion.
Often, indeed, the results of spontaneous autosuggestion are far more intense and far
more lasting than those of hypnotic suggestion.
(1920, pp.117-118)

9.3.6 Sixth Principle

Precisely because they are so powerful, “[we must] keep watch on our spontaneous autosuggestions”;
and, particularly, we must avoid mediums and clairvoyants—for their “fantastic prophecies will
germinate in our minds into veritable suggestions, and will tend to realize themselves”—and actually
generate the events that were prophesied (1920, p.118).

Noting that it could be used ‘against’ a subject by accident or design, Baudouin emphasised that it was
a subject-centred power, and not an index of subject impotence or subject inferiority (1920, p.27). He also
noted the pernicious influence of ‘self-talk’:
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 21

{48}

When we have occasion to refer to our habitual ailments, we should be careful always to
employ the past tense, saying “I have slept badly of late”; instead of the customary
present, “I am a bad sleeper”, which condenses the present and the future, and involves
the future just as much as if we were to say “I shall sleep badly tonight”. Furthermore,
we should make it a rule to talk as little as possible about our ailments.
(1920, p.118)

10. Suggestions
The following random comments present important aspects of Coué’s extremely simple (non-complex),
but not simple (easily understood) process from one useful perspective:
(a) As a scientist, Coué knew that humans were dynamic, self-regulating organisms with a natural
propensity for self-healing (a view that underpins vaccination).
(b) He directed subjects to do certain (mutually exclusive) things; i.e., rather than directing them to
refrain from doing others.
(c) His process, aimed at saturating the cognitive microenvironment of the mind, was based on four
non-controversial principles:
(i) suggestion can produce somatic phenomena;
(ii) specific suggestions generate specific somatic outcomes;
(iii) suggestions are just as efficacious in the treatment of physical or organic conditions as they
are for functional or emotional conditions; and
(iv) a successful suggestion-based intervention for a physical condition does not indicate that
the original complaint was in any way imaginary.
(d) Given that most of their operative functioning was beyond their conscious control, Coué sought
to saturate each subject’s mind with ideas that would naturally generate the desired changes,
through that subject’s own, inbuilt ideodynamic ‘realising mechanism’.
(e) Only one idea can occupy the mind at any one time; so, whenever a ‘new’ idea was introduced,
an already pre-existing idea could be:
(i) magnified, if the two were in accord with one another;
(ii) nullified, if the two were equal and opposite; or
(iii) replaced, if the two were mutually exclusive and the second stronger than the first.
(f) Each biochemical, physiological, behavioural, motor, emotional, cognitive, intellectual, sensory,
experiential or social function is directly connected in some unique fashion to a specific, unique
aspect of the mind; and each dedicated mind-to-target connecting channel can only transmit a
single message in one direction at one time.
(g) Each dysfunction, abnormality, or impairment is due to a dysfunctional message; or, with
absent function, no message at all.
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 22

(h) Coué never attempted to silence a ‘transmitter’, and never {49} attempted to block a ‘channel’;
instead, he earnestly strove to:
(i) keep all channels open, flowing, and unimpeded;
(ii) keep the transmitter broadcasting;
(iii) fully saturate the mind’s cognitive microenvironment with the ideal message; and
(iv) impel that ideal message with maximum force along the channel’s pathway with such speed
and efficiency that it met the least resistance at its target destination.
(i) Given the proliferation of mind-to-function channels, the transmitter’s power, the
appropriateness of the goal-specific function(s) selected, and the accuracy of the mind-to-
function targetting involved—and given the need for (i) (hypnotisation maintaining) zero
subject arousal, (ii) subject attribution of the message’s source to themselves, and (iii) maximum
information transfer with minimum cognitive effort—the message had to be simple (i.e. non-
complex), unequivocally precise, and clearly expressed in terms of presence (‘be relaxed’),
rather than absence (‘don’t be tense’).

11. Coué’s Formula

It is important to recognise that Coué’s approach was unique. It concentrated on engaging and
activating all of a subject’s natural curative mechanisms; and, in doing so, it was just as concerned with
removing stasis, congestion, and other real and metaphorical impediments to the natural healing
processes (vis conservatrix naturæ), as it was to motivating the transforming and natural self-healing
processes themselves (vis medicatrix naturæ).

11.1 Non-Specificity
Coué’s “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” did not specify the means by which its goal
was to be achieved, nor the manner in which that process was to take place (Brooks & Charles, 1923,
p.115). Recognising that his subjects confused wants with needs, and weren’t “wise enough” (p.116) to
know what goals to seek, what means to specify, and what processes to demand in order to attenuate
their distress, Coué said that they must not make “diverse suggestions” (such as, for example, ‘Every day,
in every way, my ovarian cancer is getting better and better’), on the grounds that his formula “covered
everything” (p.105).

11.2 Comments & Remarks

There are certain matters that require special mention:
(a) To a large extent, the initial impact of the formula’s self-administration was dictated by the
suggestions made to the subject during the ego-strengthening session.
(b) The fact that, in performing the self-administration ritual twice a day, subjects were acting in a
controlled way in order to gain self-mastery meant that the ritual, itself, had immense symbolic
value as a metonymical act (Topley, 1976, p.254).
{50}
 Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 23

(c) The formula, ‘covered everything’, and was not to be varied or embellished in any way.
(d) Every morning and evening, subjects recited the formula 20 times in a monotonously droning
voice, without any attention being paid to the wording, without any emotion, without any
thoughts of the dysfunction to be remedied, and without any imagery.
(e) To avoid awareness-demanding distraction, repetitions were counted on a 20-knot string.
(f) The subconscious teleological process, once engaged, selected and activated psychophysical
resources to effect the goal of ‘getting better’; and the ritual’s on-going performance generated
more positive, goal-directed, incremental changes.
(g) By definition, the ‘unconscious self ’ really knew what was ‘non-better’ in a particular case; and
how, and through which process, what was currently ‘non-better’ could be made ‘better’.
(h) The instruction to convert ‘non-better’ into ‘better’ in every way implicitly demanded that:
(i) the vis conservatrix naturæ and vis medicatrix naturæ operate at their optimum level and
promote positive long-term robust health (rather than a dysfunction-free state);
(ii) all ‘non-betterness’ was removed;
(iii) ‘betterness’ was to be achieved synergistically, through every possible avenue, with every
necessary resource, in every possible combination; and, most significantly,
(iv) no time was to be wasted on ‘the impossible’.
(i) The daily ritual implicitly reinforced the ‘dominant idea’ that many on-going (but not yet
evident) changes were already being effected far below the conscious levels of awareness.
(j) Due to the responses (unconsciously) generated by the ritual and formula, one was, indeed,
getting ‘better’ each and every day; not just ‘better’, but ‘increasingly better’; and not just
‘increasingly better’, but ‘increasingly better in every possible way’.
(k) A subject’s perceptions were strongly oriented to transformation; and they began to notice
changes and improvements that they consequently (and automatically) processed as being self-
evident proof that hidden work was being done, far below their conscious awareness, on all of
those things that were previously ‘non-better’.
(l) This perceived transformation of previously ‘non-better’ things to ‘better’, in its turn, would go
on to generate other equally important changes (which were, in themselves, the inevitable
consequence of earlier ‘non-better-to-better’ transformations).

To be continued in Part III.

======================================================
{51}

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Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion 29
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 1

Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way

Lindsay B. Yeates, PhD

School of Humanities & Languages, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, NSW Australia

Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis,

Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.55-79.

Abstract
The rationale, structure, content, and presentation of the final version of Coué‘s
method (c.1923) is described, analysed, and examined. Continuously, unjustly, and
mistakenly trivialised as just a hand-clasp, some unwarranted optimism, and a
‘mantra’, Coué’s method evolved over several decades of meticulous observation,
theoretical speculation, in-the-field testing, incremental adjustment, and step-by-
step transformation. It tentatively began (c.1901) with very directive one-to-one
hypnotic interventions, based upon the approaches and techniques that Coué had
acquired from an American correspondence course. As his theoretical knowledge,
clinical experience, understanding of suggestion and autosuggestion, and hypnotic
skills expanded, it gradually developed into its final subject-centred version—an
intricate complex of (group) education, (group) hypnotherapy, (group) ego-
strengthening, and (group) training in self-suggested pain control; and, following
instruction in performing the prescribed self-administration ritual, the twice daily
intentional and deliberate (individual) application of its unique formula, “Every
day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”.

KEY WORDS: autosuggestion, ego-strengthening, group treatment, hypnotherapy,

hypnotic suggestion, pain control, prayer ropes, self-hypnosis

NOTE to the Reader

A small number of textual errors and omissions in the final
published version of this paper have been corrected.
Otherwise, the original paper’s content remains unchanged.
[Also, please note that, for the reader’s convenience, the
original paper’s pagination is indicated as {1}, etc.]
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 2

{55}
[Continued from Part II]
Having examined the history of la méthode Coué in Part I (Yeates, 2016a), and its representational
structure in Part II (Yeates, 2016b), we now examine its practical clinical delivery.

1. Preliminary
Coué’s talent for structured thinking, and his experiences with those seeking pharmaceutical or
hypnotherapeutic assistance over the years, convinced him of the significance of ‘dominant ideas’, and
the therapeutic potential of suggestion. Interacting with less well-educated patients fostered valuable
skills—he was easier to talk to, spoke in simpler terms, understood patients’ problems better,
understood their questions better, asked better questions, and delivered easier to follow instructions.
{56}
From his knowledge of their background, beliefs, apprehensions, and abilities, he developed a
method, based on rational, hypnotism-centred ego-strengthening which smoothly converted an
(otherwise) abstract potential into a powerful means through which many remarkable therapeutic
changes were effected.

1.1 Final Version

His meticulous attention to the smallest detail over decades of observation, speculation, and testing,
was what set his method significantly apart from all other approaches:

To ignore ‘little’ things so as to get sooner at the bigger ones is a common fault [of those
in the field], but one that not infrequently has serious, even disastrous, effects, for
‘apparent’ trifles are apt to prove of vital importance.
It is by but apparently little things that the system I have formulated differs from others;
those ‘trifles’, however, have often enabled persons who, after practising various other
systems ineffectually, sought my advice, to get even more benefit than they imagined
possible.
(Coué, in Coué & Orton, 1924, pp.10-11)

Any examination of Coué’s method must concentrate on its specific target: those individuals presenting
for (collective) treatment at his clinic, who performed his twice-daily formula-self-administration
ritual—by contrast with those who attended a single lecture, skimmed through a book, watched his
short movie, or listened to a gramophone recording. The final version, rather than earlier versions, must
be studied; and, instead of relying on the inaccurate, incomplete, or simply mistaken accounts of those
with incommensurable theories or different therapeutic goals, we must examine what Coué actually did,
said, and intended to achieve. However, before proceeding, several important elements need to be
identified and discussed.

2. Hypnotism
Coué’s studies with Liébeault convinced him of the value of mental therapeutics (see Part I: Yeates,
2016a). Back in Troyes, he experimented with Liébeault’s sleep-based ‘hypnosis’; and, finding it useless,
abandoned ‘hypnosis’ altogether in 1886. In 1901, he purchased a correspondence course (Sage, 1900b,
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 3

1900d), based on Hudson’s mental therapeutics (see Hudson, 1893, 1900, 1903), which taught (Braid-style)
upwards and inwards squint induction techniques. Coué studied intensely, rapidly becoming an expert
hypnotherapist. Within eight years, he had sold his pharmacy, moved from Troyes to Nancy, and was
devoting himself to hypnotherapy full-time.

Given the unfortunate ambiguity of ‘hypnosis’ (see Part II: Yeates, 2016b), statements that Coué
“discarded hypnosis proper” (Meyer, 1923, p.475), “abandoned the trance entirely” (Hull, 1929, p.159),
“abandoned traditional hypnosis” (Melton, 2001, I, pp.344-345), etc., must not be interpreted as saying he
ceased using hypnotism. Although he abandoned Liébeault’s ‘hypnosis’ in 1886, he adopted Braid’s
‘hypnotism’ in 1901; and he actively used hypnotism for the rest of his life (Baudouin, 1920, pp.257-258;
Orton, 1955, p.48). Also, and in particular, he used “profound” hypnotism “where the subject [was]
maladroit in the use of autosuggestion, [and] above all when he cannot {57} learn to avoid making efforts
of the will”, because profound hypnotism “suspends the voluntary activity which is impairing the chances
of success” (Baudouin, 1920, p.258). [For similar reasons, assertions that, in the absence of ‘hypnosis’, he
used “waking-suggestion” are just as mistaken.]

2.1 Hypnotherapy
While Liébeault and Bernheim concentrated on the coercive power of the operator’s suggestion
(Tuckey, 1891, pp.42-46), Coué’s approach, entirely consistent with James Braid’s “psycho-physiology”
(Braid, 1855, p.855) and Thomson Jay Hudson’s “mental therapeutics”, concentrated on the transformative
power of the subject’s mind. As the demand for his hypnotherapeutic interventions increased, Coué
went from one-to-one sessions of “suggestive therapeutics” to collective sessions of ego-strengthening.

2.2 Hypnotism
While hypnotism-centred procedures that are overtly identified as hypnotic are well-known to generate
a significantly higher level of subject responsiveness to suggestion (Barber & De Moor, 1972; Gandhi &
Oakley, 2005), Coué deliberately chose not to identify any of his hypnotic procedures as ‘hypnotism’, and
he did so for several reasons.

Given his method’s stress on the “unconscious self” and “autosuggestion” it would have been
inconsistent (if not a total sell-out) to identify his procedures as hypnotism. Also, because so many of his
own patients reported Bernheim’s failure to induce “hypnotic sleep”, he needed to separate his own
activities from the ‘hypnosis’ of Liébeault and Bernheim (Coué, 1923a, pp.42-43). Baudouin had similar
experiences:

I have seen a number of Bernheim’s old patients. Most of them said: “I never went to
sleep at all”; or, “I was still wide awake in the hypnotic sleep”; or “I slept without
sleeping”; or, “I am not sure if I was really asleep”; or, “To please him, I told him I had
been asleep”.
(Baudouin, 1920, p.205)
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 4

Such failures, whether real or imagined, had a counterproductive effect (Coué, 1923a, p.43). [We’ve all
had deeply hypnotised patients who claim on de-hypnotisation that they were not hypnotised at all.]
“Subjects”, explained Baudouin, “believe that the hypnotizer is endowed with wonderful powers” and,
specifically, because they “attribute the result … to these powers”, they also believe that “in the absence
of the cause (the hypnotizer) there can be no effect”. Consequently, Baudouin observed, “one of the
problems of using induced sleep as a general method of treatment [is that, because] profound hypnosis
[is very rarely] perfectly attained during the whole course of treatment [a subject will] be apt to reason as
follows: ‘The doctor was not able to put me to sleep; but he wanted to send me to sleep in order that he
might cure me; therefore he will not be able to cure me’” (1920, p.204-205).

In relation to “suggestive therapeutics”, the correspondence course continuously stressed that

suggestion produced outcomes. It also taught that, because “properly given [suggestions] take effect in
the waking state”, one did not need to have the patient “in {58} a hypnotic condition, or in a state of
partial hypnosis … to cure him, although this [was] often the most certain way”. Whilst students were
told that they could mention that hypnotisation might assist therapeutic success, they were forbidden to
speak of hypnotisation as “a necessary pre-requisite of successful treatment”. In fact, students were told:
“[don’t] let the patient know that you are going to treat him by hypnotism [at all]. It is an easy matter to
deceive the patient in this. [By the very act of] calling it suggestion, the average person will not know
that you intend to employ hypnotic treatment” (Sage, 1900c, p.16). The course’s recommendation was
based on two substantial grounds (ibid.):
(a) procedural problems attending any potential (real or imagined) operator failure would, as a
consequence, be entirely eliminated; and, far more significantly,
(b) “suggestion” would be clearly recognised as being an important, central, and essential aspect of
the entire extended therapeutic interaction (i.e., “suggestive therapeutics”)—rather than, that is,
just being limited to those fleeting moments in between hypnotization and de-hypnotisation
(and, of course, only for those who could be hypnotised).

There was also the widespread fear of hypnotism and hypnotists. Sidestepping these concerns, Coué
presented his approach as relaxed concentration—not hypnotism. Although Coué had found that only
“peculiarly sensitive subjects” could be hypnotised without “any preliminaries”, his experience revealed
that, provided an individual been subjected to his “preliminaries”—i.e., they had listened to his
explanations, seen his demonstrations, conducted his thought experiments, and undergone his
“experiences”—they were rather easy to hypnotise; especially when the entire procedure was being
represented to them as if it were simply one of relaxed concentration:
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 5

Formerly, imagining that suggestion could only be given during sleep, I always tried to
put my patients to sleep; but on discovering that it was not indispensable, I left off doing
it in order to spare him the dread and uneasiness he almost always experiences when he
is told that he is going to be sent to sleep, and which makes him offer, in spite of himself,
involuntary resistance.
If, on the contrary, you tell him that you are not going to put him to sleep as there is no
need to do so, you gain his confidence.
He listens to you without fear or ulterior thought, and it often happens—if not the first
time, anyhow very soon—that, soothed by the monotonous sound of your voice, he falls
into a deep sleep from which he awakes astonished at having slept at all.
(Coué, 1922b, p.24)

The hypnotic induction for his ego-strengthening monologue (delivered to an already well-
conditioned audience) began:

Sit down and close your eyes.

I am not going to try and put you to sleep as it is quite unnecessary.
I ask you to close your eyes simply in order that your attention may not be distracted by
the objects around you.
{59}
Now tell yourself that every word I say is going to fix itself in your mind, and be printed,
engraved, and encrusted in it, that, there, it is going to stay fixed, imprinted, and
encrusted and that without your will or knowledge, in fact perfectly unconsciously on
your part, you yourself and your whole organism are going to obey …
(Coué, 1912, p.35; 1922b, p.19)

And concluded with:

Now I am going to count three, and when I say “Three”, you will open your eyes and
come out of the passive state in which you are now.
You will come out of it quite naturally, without feeling in the least drowsy or tired, on the
contrary, you will feel strong, vigorous, alert, active, full of life; further still, you will feel
very cheerful and fit in every way. “ONE– TWO– THREE–” …
(Coué, 1912, p.37; 1922b, p.22)

Coué, commented that, “at the word ‘three’ the subject opens his eyes, always with a smile and an
expression of well-being and contentment on his face” (1912, p.37; 1922b, p.22).

3. Collective Treatment
With such an intricate procedure, presenting the same expositions, explanations, representations,
subject-conditioning exercises, and using the same ego-strengthening monologue with every subject,
and given the intensive operator-effort required, there was an obvious efficiency in collective treatment;
in particular because of the added bonus of his patients severally and collectively acting upon, and
reacting to, one another.

Coué’s … collective treatment … was performed on a scale, and with a scope,

unprecedented.
Collective treatment has certain advantages. So much of the instruction given is of a
general character, and yet is so [necessary], that a great saving of time is effected.
(Orton, 1935, p.298)
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 6

During the collective sittings the patient might have been impressed by seeing the
remarkable cures that were in progress.
Some of these were cases of organic disease; others were cases of nervous paralysis, and,
since in the latter the cure was at times instantaneous, their effect upon the new patient’s
imagination was considerable.
More or less unconsciously [she might form] in her mind some sort of association
between these cases and the [condition] from which she herself suffered, [and so,] under
the influence of the suggestion “In all respects, I get better and better”, her subconscious had
considered [her condition] to be one of these “respects”, [and therefore] to be a particular
case embraced by the general formula.
(Baudouin, 1920, p.157)

{60}

3.1 Safety in Numbers

Joseph Barber (1990) reported far greater success when he worked with subjects in ‘workshops’,
compared with (apparently identical) subjects in ‘normal’ clinical settings. The influence of a similar
subject-operator-audience triad (see Yeates, 2013, p.157) is very apparent in the case of Coué:
(a) a subject, as the subject, is fully prepared to comply with the operator’s directives;
(b) the presence of others implicitly guarantees their safety;
(c) subjects can obey the operator without any need for on-going monitoring;
(d) subjects can fully immerse themselves in whatever is suggested—which, in turn, guarantees the
maximum efficacy of the intervention;
(e) subjects, in presenting for treatment, have agreed that ‘effects’ can be produced;
(f) subjects have invested the operator with the power to produce ‘effects’;
(g) subjects ‘must’ produce the ‘effects’ as directed, specifically because the operator’s
transformative effectiveness has already been abundantly manifested by the context of the
location, the event, and the operator’s skill;
(h) the (highly skilled) operator’s acceptance of those individuals as subjects implicitly attests to
their capacities to produce the ‘effects’ sought;
(i) the operator implicitly and explicitly conveys the expectation that a single operation is all that’s
needed to produce the ‘effects’ sought;
(j) the operator and the subjects (severally and collectively) are all highly optimistic; and,
(k) not only do subjects, operator, and the entire group expect success, but they expect immediate
success, and they expect it to be effected in a single operation.
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 7

4. Thought Experiment
In his 1912 lecture (see Part I: Yeates, 2016a), Coué offered the following thought experiment—
suggested by Montaigne in 1580 (Montaigne, 1861, II, p.332), and modified by Bacon in 1627 (Bacon,
1670, p.168, §.795) and Pascal in 1699 (Pascal, 2005, p.13)—to demonstrate the power of the “unconscious
self” (a.k.a. “the imagination”) over the “conscious self” (a.k.a. “the will”) [For more on this particular
thought experiment’s mechanism, see Yeates, 2004, pp.150-159]:

Suppose that we place on the ground a plank 30 feet long by 1 foot wide.
It is evident that everybody will be capable of going from one end to the other of this
plank without stepping over the edge.
But now change the conditions of the experiment, and imagine this plank placed at the
height of the towers of a cathedral.
Who then will be capable of advancing even a few feet along this narrow path? Could
you hear me speak? Probably not.
Before you had taken two steps you would begin to tremble, and in spite of every effort
of your will you would be certain to fall to the ground.
Why is it then that you would not fall if the plank is on the ground, and why {61} should
you fall if it is raised to a height above the ground?
Simply because in the first case you imagine that it is easy to go to the end of the plank,
while in the second case you imagine that you cannot do so.
Notice that your will is powerless to make you advance; if you imagine that you cannot,
it is absolutely impossible for you to do so.
If tilers and carpenters are able to accomplish this feat, it is because they think they can
do it. Vertigo is caused by the picture we make in our minds that we are going to fall.
This picture transforms itself immediately into fact in spite of all the efforts of our will,
and the more violent these efforts are, the quicker is the opposite to the desired result
brought about.
(Coué, 1922c, pp.7-8; translation of 1912, pp.26-27—emphasis in original.)

5. The Four “Experiences”

Coué’s “four experiences” (“quatre expériences”) had their origin in the “four simple tests” (“quatre
essais simples”) of the correspondence course (Sage, 1900a/1900b, pp.9-24). The “tests” (i.e., proofs) were
a set of operator-to-subject interactive procedures designed to increased ‘charisma’, ‘stage presence’,
‘delivery’, and ‘confidence’ step-by-step. Students proved their acquisition of the goals embodied within
each procedure, at each stage, before going on to the next; and had to have proved that they had attained
all four levels before progressing on to learn hypnotic inductions, etc. (see Neal, 1900, pp.32-42, for an
abbreviated version of the “tests”).

5.1 Coué’s Version

Coué had mastered each “test” during his studies (c.1901). Needing to demonstrate ‘dominant ideas’
in a physical (not just an intellectual) sense, his breakthrough was to re-conceptualise the “tests” as
subject-centred experiences that demonstrated just how easily suggestions could flood ‘the mind’ and
generate psychophysical ‘effects’ (descriptions at Coué, 1912, pp.32-35; 1922b, pp.15-18). [Obviously,
“experiments”, for “expériences”, is an unfortunate mis-translation.] His “experiences” included the
postural-sway and hand-clasp exercises; but, as he often remarked, an infinite number of “experiences”
were available if one ever needed to call on them (1912, p.35; 1922b, p.18).
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 8

These “experiences” moved the entire performance in an important new direction: instead of
imparting “knowledge by description”, it now began to deliver “knowledge by acquaintance” and
simultaneously promote “psychological ownership” of that knowledge (see Yeates, 2004, pp.119-125).
The “experiences” made many valuable contributions, including:
(a) conditioning subjects to be responsive to subsequent ego-strengthening;
(b) (from the ‘mental flooding’ involved) pro-actively dealing with the issue raised by Myers (1891-
1892, p.351): viz., that “[a] patient’s self-suggestion that he was not going to be cured” often
created such a level of resistance that hypnotic induction became impossible;
(c) actively engaging and involving the audience;
(d) greatly accelerating their understanding by providing a convincing demonstration of the
difference between “the will” and “imagination”;
{62}
(e) providing a direct experience of a ‘dominant idea’ being realised; and
(f) identifying the referents of ‘will’, ‘imagination’, and ‘dominant idea’ so clearly that Coué was
relieved of the need for any further explication.

Apart from “the mentally retarded, who are incapable of comprehending what is said to them”, and
“[those] intellectualizing individuals whose skittish minds are unable to concentrate on a single idea for
more than a few moments” (1912, p.32), Coué believed that, by the end of his ego-strengthening procedure,
all who had listened to his explanations, conducted his thought experiments, taken part in his
“experiences”, followed his directions, and immersed themselves in his ego-strengthening monologue,
would have attained a level of hypnotisation sufficient to allow them to smoothly “accept the
suggestions [given] and turn them into auto-suggestions” (p.37).

I cannot repeat often enough, that, in all of these experiences, it’s not the suggestion that
produces the phenomena, it’s the subsequent autosuggestion, following the practitioner’s
suggestion.
…
When the subject has passed through the preceding experiences, and has understood
them, he is ripe for curative [ego-strengthening] suggestion.
He is like a cultivated field in which the seed can germinate and develop; where,
previously, it was a wasteland upon which the seed would have perished.
(Coué, 1912, pp.32, 35)

5.2 Extra-Hypnotic Suggestions

The “experiences” involved routines of ever-increasing difficulty, which incrementally convinced
subjects of the suggestions embedded within the routines, demonstrated that their own powers were
increasing, and made them far more responsive to subsequent inductions (as evidenced by the modern
application of the routines as ‘susceptibility tests’ or, even, as hypnotic inductions).
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 9

Even though there was no ‘hypnotic state’ involved with any of the “experiences”, Weitzenhoffer
(1972, p.22) emphatically rejected the terms “waking suggestion” and “non-hypnotic suggestion”—the terms
were, he said, “inherently ambiguous” in that context—and, instead, he insisted on using the far more
appropriate “extra-hypnotic suggestion” of Moutin (1896, p.23).

6. Self-Suggestion
From the position that hypnotism was “a psychological condition in which the effect of suggestion is
heightened” (Atkinson, 1912, p.241), Coué initially adopted the ‘standard’ approach of self-hypnosis—
namely, he adopted “hypnotist-absent self-hypnosis” (Fromm & Kahn, 1990, p.45)—plus self-suggestion.

6.1 Others
Adkin (1900, pp.115-116) asked his self-hypnotised subjects to mentally concentrate on simple ego-
strengthening ideas. Parkyn (1905, pp.35-40) asked his self-hypnotised subjects to recite a sequence of
complicated condition-specific complex suggestions (e.g., for “habitual worry” (182 words); for “anger”
(215 words), etc.), an activity {63} demanding considerable counter-hypnotic-state alertness. Atkinson,
observing that subjects were both “suggester” and “suggestee” (p.177), the “Me” and the “You” (p.190) in
the process, asked his self-hypnotised subjects (à la Parkyn) to recite similar long sequences of
suggestions, in a different, but equally complicated (and alertness-demanding) way, and from a rather
different perspective:

In making these suggestions to yourself you should always address yourself (when
giving the suggestion) as if you were speaking to a third person.
Instead of saying “I am courageous and fearless”, you should suggest to yourself as
follows: “John Smith, you are courageous and fearless [etc.]” … [you must] imagine that
you are suggesting to another person whom you are very desirous of building up and
strengthening … [and] talk to “John Smith” as if he were an entirely different individual.
Tell him what you wish him to do and become, and how you expect him to act.
(Atkinson, 1909, pp.188-189)

6.2 Coué
By 1912, Coué was ending his monologue with the suggestion, “In short, I mean that, from every point of
view, both physically and mentally, you are going to enjoy excellent health, better than you have ever enjoyed so
far” (1912, pp.36-37). In order, they were told, to “assist” the operator, and to activate “the instrument of
their own recovery”, subjects were asked to repeat the operator’s words (‘répéter les paroles que vous avez
prononcées’) each morning and each evening before going to sleep, because, “if they can fall asleep
thinking about them, it will be all the better for them, because, during sleep the operator’s words will
roll around in their mind and, consequently, will be embedded, and employed by their ‘unconscious
self’ much sooner” (p.37).

7. The Absent Operator

Around 1903, Coué recommended a new patent medicine, based on its promotional material, which
effected an unexpected and immediate cure (Baudouin, 1920, p.90; Shrout, 1985, p.36). Coué (the
chemist) found “[by subsequent] chemical analysis in his laboratory [that there was] nothing in the
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 10

medicine which by the remotest stretch of the imagination accounted for the results” (Shrout, ibid.).
Coué (the hypnotist) concluded that it was cure by suggestion; but, rather than Coué having cured him,
the man had cured himself by continuously telling himself the same thing that Coué had told him.

7.1 Hetero-Suggestion-by-Proxy
Convinced that the ‘effect’ was due to the subject’s self-administered ‘operator-hetero-suggestion-by-
proxy’, Coué adopted the practice of demanding that subjects imagine him (in absentia) at a nominated
time, and to be calmly receptive, at that specific time, to the suggestions that, Coué said, he would be
transmitting directly to them at that very moment:

[The patient is instructed to think of Coué] every evening at a fixed hour, collect his
thoughts at the specified time, and to put himself in mental rapport with [Coué].
{64}
The value of the treatment, [the patient] is told, will speedily become apparent.
The patient obeys orders.
At the appointed hour, Coué is gardening or fishing [i.e., neither thinking of the patient,
nor transmitting any suggestions of any kind at all].
Nevertheless, after a few “sittings”, a cure ensues.
Sometimes it deserves to be called a “miraculous” cure.
(Baudouin, 1920, p.90)

7.2 Influence-by-Proxy
As late as 1922, in a somewhat watered-down version, Coué was still demanding that, when self-
administrating, “[the subject] must close his eyes and mentally transport himself into [my] presence, and
then repeat twenty times…” (1922b, p.49, emphasis added). McDougall noted: “this is a method that I
have myself used with success, more especially in cases of insomnia” (1926, p.124). By January 1923,
Coué had removed all ‘thinking of the operator’ stipulations from his procedure (see Coué & Orton,
1924, pp.96-97).

8. Prayer of the Heart

The “Prayer of the Heart” (or “Jesus Prayer”) began with hermits in the Egyptian desert more than
fifteen centuries ago (Chariton, 1966), and has continued to play a significant role in the Orthodox
Church ever since. It involves the constant repetition of a prayer, using a prayer-rope to count the
repetitions—either “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me”, or (emulating the publican in
Luke 18:13), “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”:

What does [the “Prayer of the Heart”] mean? When a man begins to pray, at first he
prays with the lips, and has to make a conscious intellectual effort in order to realize the
meaning of what he says. But if he perseveres, praying continually with recollection, his
intellect and his heart become united: he “finds the place of the heart”, his spirit acquires
the power of “dwelling in the heart”, and so his prayer becomes “prayer of the heart”. It
becomes something not merely said by the lips, not merely thought by the intellect, but
offered spontaneously by the whole being of man—lips, intellect, emotions, will, and
body. The prayer fills the entire consciousness, and no longer has to be forced out, but
says itself.
(Ware, 1982, p.74)
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 11

{65}

8.1 Prayer-Rope
Prayer-ropes are the knotted cords, usually made of wool, that are an essential part of male and female
Orthodox monasticism; especially, the hesychasts (those who silently devote themselves to inner
recollection and private prayer: Ware, 1982, p.73). The knots, displayed in various arrays, various
sequences, and of various numbers, count prayer repetitions.

8.2 The Way of a Pilgrim

The Way of a Pilgrim (Savin, 2001; also French, 1971, 1982) is the English version of an immensely
popular Russian work, first published in 1884, that asserts its authority by the well-worn literary trope of
‘the found manuscript’ written by an unknown author. It tells of a simple Russian Christian, who hears
the text “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17), and embarks on an extended and most arduous
pilgrimage that culminates with his acquisition of the “Prayer of the Heart”.

Coué would have heard the story from Russian émigrés, and strongly identified with the pilgrim’s
quest to find the ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘when’, ‘how’, and ‘where’ of an abstract principle of which he was
already convinced. There are many points of comparison between the prayer and Coué’s ritual—fixed
formula, physical position, particular times of day, prayer rope, no imagery, no thinking, rapid
utterance, etc., and its relentless, exclusive concentration on a simple formula. Although no clear
evidence is readily available, one must draw the inescapable conclusion (especially given his ‘nail in the
plank’ representation of his method: see Part I (Yeates, 2016a)) that the “Prayer of the Heart” was the
inspiration for both his formula and his self-administration procedure.

8.3 Exclusive Concentration

Coué’s subjects no longer used ‘inclusive’ self-hypnosis—i.e., a procedure that freely “allow[ed] all
kinds of thoughts, emotions, memories, and the like to drift into their consciousness”. By contrast, and in
his desire to saturate the cognitive environment of ‘the mind’—and, in particular, given his
understanding of the teleological significance of ‘dominant ideas’—Coué chose to adopt the prayer’s
extremely narrow and ‘exclusive’ concentration on the sound of the formula, specifically to ensure that
“everything else [was] kept out of awareness” (Fromm & Kahn, 1990, pp.6-7).

8.4 Knotted-String
Subjects were instructed to close their eyes, every morning and evening, and rapidly repeat the
formula “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”, twenty times, in a voice just loud
enough for their ears to hear, at a moderate speed, without paying any attention to the words, without
any emotion, without any thoughts of the dysfunction to be remedied, and without any imagery; and, in
order to avoid any awareness-demanding distraction, the repetitions were effortlessly counted on a 20-
knot string:
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 12

[Originally] I recommended the practice of passing from finger to finger in repeating the
formula; but experience proved that the majority of patients made an attempt (and an effort)
to count the repetitions.
That was why I proposed the use of a knotted string.
(Coué, in Orton, 1935, pp.244-245, emphasis added)

9. The Formula
Derived from the American correspondence course (i.e., Adkin, 1900, pp.115-116), and inspired by the
“Prayer of the Heart’s” formulation and its associated physical techniques, Coué’s formula is
inextricably linked with the ego-strengthening procedure:
{66}
(a) the sequence of suggestions within the ego-strengthening procedure unequivocally stipulates
the manner in which the content of the formula is to be interpreted;
(b) the subject’s subsequent ritual-administration experience is ‘coupled’ with their within-
hypnotism experience (“You should always couple an effect that you want to produce with one that the
subject is actually experiencing at the moment”: Hartland, 1966, p.35, emphasis in original); and
(c) the ego-strengthening procedure also fixes the formula’s verbal expression, in such a way that
the formula acts as a “trigger”.

9.1 Non-Specific
The formula’s transformative power is a direct consequence of its non-specificity (see Part II: Yeates,
2016b):

People may wonder why I am content to prescribe such a general and apparently vague
formula as “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” for all [sic] and every
ailment.
The reason is, strange as it may seem, that our subconscious mind does not need the
details.
The general suggestion that everything “in every way” is going well is quite sufficient to
set up the procedure of persuasion which will carry its effects to the different organs and
improve every function.
I have had remarkable demonstration of this in the course of my long teaching and
experiments.
Time and again I have seen patients cured, not only of the particular disease for which
they sought relief, but also of minor disabilities, which they had almost forgotten.
Why a general suggestion is better than specific suggestions.
The fact is, our subconscious knows much more than we can ever know ourselves about
our physical organism.
Fortunately for us!
Just think what a mess we should make of things if we had to look after every function:
breathing, digestion, for instance.
Who is it that takes charge of such a complicated job?
The subconscious mind, and if it ever does its work badly, it is always because, in some
way or another, we have voluntarily meddled with it.
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 13

Every organ or function is connected with and depends in some degree upon others, and
if the ordinary man or woman were to begin ordering the subconscious tinkering with a
particular organ, he or she would certainly be obeyed, only the chances are that
something else would then go wrong as a result of insufficient knowledge or perhaps
complete ignorance of physiology on the part of the conscious mind.
(Coué, 1923b, pp.27-29)

{67}

9.2 The French Version

Coué’s formula, “Tous les jours, à tous points de vue, je vaix mieux en mieux” (‘Every day, from all points
of view, I grow better and better’), which was developed over many years, reached its final form c.1915.
According to Coué, it was the equivalent of “Day by day I am approaching nearer and nearer to what I
consider [to be] my physical, intellectual and moral ideal” (Orton, 1935, p.183).

9.3 The English Version

Coué experimented with more than ten English versions, commencing with “Day by day, in all
respects, I grow better”. In 1923, with the expert assistance of E. Virgil Neal (the correspondence course’s
author), it reached its final form, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” (Whiteside,
1953, p.111). The powerful impact of this euphonious, well-balanced English version was greatly
increased by its demand for far fewer sequential changes in jaw, tongue, and mouth positions than any
of the other versions—a factor that considerably enhanced the prospect of one’s far deeper, and far more
effortless immersion in the formula’s self-administration ritual.

10. Ego-Strengthening
Coué’s experiences convinced him that one’s habitual state of mind determined one’s degree of
distress and suffering and, also, affected the eventual outcome of any treatment (see Part I: Yeates,
2016a). Despite rejecting his ‘hypnosis’, he agreed with Liébeault on the potential that changes in mind-
set offered for relief, amelioration, and cure. Coué’s decision to devote his burgeoning hypnotherapeutic
skills to group interactions forced him (most fortuitously) to concentrate on what his patients had in
common; not how they differed. So, rather than (micro-level) individualized disease-banishing, he set
about working (meta-level) to generate harmonious mental processes, and to arouse, motivate, and
liberate underperforming, dormant, or latent aspects of the vis conservatrix naturæ, ‘sustaining force of
nature’, and the vis medicatrix naturæ, ‘healing force of nature’, in all of his patients.

10.1 Transformation
It is significant that, for Coué the hypnotherapist, a decision to seek treatment was precisely that—a
decision to seek transformation. It was not a decision to seek diagnosis. Whatsoever it was, whomsoever was
responsible, whensoever it began, and for whatever reason, was completely irrelevant to his (meta-level)
enterprise. Obviously, given the sought (and expected) post-transformation relief, “it” would no longer
be there; and, post-transformation, one would simply concentrate on just getting on with the rest of
one’s life.
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 14

10.2 Ego-Strengthening Monologue

Coué used suggestion to achieve significant psychophysical change. With a goal of enhancing ‘self-
mastery’, he created a systematic procedure, centred on an ego-strengthening monologue, designed to
arouse the will to live and will to health; attain a clearer mind and calmer emotional state; activate
natural healing processes; increase self-reliance, self-responsibility, and self-regulation; increase self-
confidence, self-{68}efficacy, etc. Developed over many years, and first published in 1912 (pp.35-37), it
reached its final form c.1921 (1922b, pp.19-23), and became the foundation of Hartland’s (1965) ego-
strengthening monologue (see Parts I (Yeates, 2016a) and II (Yeates, 2016b); and Yeates, 2014a, and
2014b).

Coué understood that suggestions are cumulative—“a suggestion once accepted lessens resistance to
additional suggestions and the reasoning processes become more passive because of its acceptance” (Teitelbaum,
1965, p.17)—and that, whenever suggestions are presented in an ordered sequence, they are far more
effective. In 1924, and stressing its rational, logical order, Coué identified the following sequence in his
ego-strengthening monologue—Preparation; Digestion; Excretion; Sleep; Mental Outlook; Organic Disorder;
Functional Disorder; Self-Confidence; Ease; Summary; Dissipation of the Placid Condition; and Final Instructions
(Coué & Orton, 1924, pp.89-97).

10.3 Ego-Strengthening Therapy

Coué warned against expecting rapid results:

Many people … imagine that they can be immediately cured by autosuggestion.

It is a mistake, for it is not reasonable to think so.
It is no use expecting from suggestion more than it can normally produce, that is to say, a
progressive improvement which little by little transforms itself into a complete cure,
when that is possible.
(Coué, 1922b, p.39)

Some patients attended for as many as twelve twice-weekly ego-strengthening treatments (Baudouin,
1920, p.232); others attended regularly, at ever-increasing intervals between treatments, for as many as
ten treatments. While some were “cured on the spot”, the majority experienced only a temporary
attenuation or relief; and, in such cases:

it is necessary to renew the suggestions more or less frequently according to your subject,
being careful always to space them out at longer and longer intervals, according to the
progress obtained until they are no longer necessary—that is to say when the cure is
complete.
(Coué, 1922b, p.22)
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 15

11. Pain
Counter-intuitively, hypnotic analgesia (‘no pain’) or hypnotic anæsthesia (‘no sensation’) is far easier to
achieve with organic pain, such as a knife wounds, broken ankles, etc., than in cases of psychogenic pain,
such as an intense pre-examination bellyache (see Crasilneck & Hall, 1985, pp.95-113). James Braid used
hypnotism for pain-free surgery in 1842 (Braid, 1843, pp.250-253) and used autosuggestion to dispel pain
in 1844 (Braid, 1850, pp.63-64).

11.1 Coué’s Approach

Coué’s “no-pain” procedure emerged c.1917; and Baudouin (1920, p.161) noted that, for those who
regularly self-administered the formula, the additional “no-pain” procedure produced relief “within a
few minutes”. As Brooks (1923, pp.105-106) {69} remarked, although many objected to Coué’s procedure
because “pain is a danger-signal informing us that something is amiss with our physical system” and
“removing pain may rob us of a valuable warning of incipient ill, and so permit some disorder to
develop unsuspected”, “this would [only] be true if [it] prevented the appearance of pain. But it does
not. It removes the pain after its appearance; that is to say, after the warning has been given”. Three
advantages accrued from Coué’s “no-pain” approach (p.106):
(a) the attention-diverting “physical torment” of pain is no longer a continuous impediment to the
healing processes;
(b) it “remove[d] pain by ameliorating the pathological condition from which it results”; and
(c) in teaching a method to deal with pain, anticipatory fear is greatly reduced, if not eliminated
entirely.

11.2 “Pain” and “Autosuggestion”

As Bramwell (1903, p.67) observed, pain introduces an entirely new dimension. Pain monopolises the
attention and involves ‘the mind’ to such an extent that one is unable to attain the separation required to
initiate a successful autosuggestion; and, even if one could do so, if one suggested “I have no pain”,
counter-suggestions of “I have some pain” or “I have a bad pain” would immediately create fresh
thoughts of pain (Brooks, 1923, pp.101-106).

11.3 “It is passing”

Obviously, based on his observation of Liébeault at work a quarter of a century earlier—Tuckey (1891)
reported that Liébeault’s treatment “consisted essentially in directing the [hypnotized] invalid’s
attention on the part affected, and suggesting an amelioration or disappearance of the morbid condition
and symptoms” (pp.43-44)—Coué settled on “ça passe” (‘it is passing’) c.1917 (for English-speakers, “it is
going”), uttered at machine-gun like speed (as Coué clearly demonstrates at 1923c, 1923d), at the same time
as making rapid “passing” hand movements over “whatever part that is painful if it is something
physical”, or “over your forehead if it is something mental” (Coué, 1922b, p.60).

Recommending its application for both literal and metaphorical pain—i.e., whenever “[we’re] seized
by some physical pain or … affected by some undesirable mental state (an obsession, a phobia, a
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 16

disagreeable reminiscence or a gloomy foreboding, etc.)”—Baudouin stressed that the “passes” were not
a vestige of earlier magnetic practices, but were of “incontestable value”; because, he said, they
“unquestionably aid in the fixation, the materialization, of our thoughts; like the articulatory movements
[of our lips and tongue when repeating ‘ça passe’], they help to sustain it, and by their monotony they
tend to promote hypnotization” (1920, pp.160-161).

By his second US visit (1923), Coué had determined that ‘ça passe’ was also the most effective for
English speakers (one suspects that they unconsciously associated ‘ça passe’ with ‘surpass’):
{70}

[Make the passes, and,] at the same time repeating in an undertone, so swiftly as to make
of it a mere gabble the words “ça passe” (pronounce “sah pass”).
In a few minutes the pain should disappear, or at the very least, be considerably
diminished.
The reason for gabbling the words is to avoid the risk of any other extraneous or contrary
thought slipping in through fissures which might result from a more distinct but slower
diction.
For the same reason I advise English-speaking people to stick to the French version: it
being much easier to say “ça passe” quickly than the longer and more awkward
expression “it is passing” or “it is going”.
(Coué, 1923b, pp.30-31)

11.4 Non-Specific
It is important to stress that Coué’s “no-pain” technique was the same for all—regardless of whether
their complaint, agitation, pain, suffering, distress, or discomfort was (i) organic or psychogenic, (ii)
chronic or acute, (iii) sharp or dull, (iv) constant or intermittent, or (v) comparatively physical or
comparatively metaphorical—and, further, it is significant that a wide range of recent research indicates
that many aspects of physical pain and psychological pain are expressed through precisely the same
neurological mechanisms (see Meerwijk, et al., 2013).

12. Coué’s Performance

The brief summary that follows is derived from various works published under Coué’s name, and the
eyewitness accounts of Aram (1923), Baird (1956/1923), Baudouin (1920), Bronner (1923), Brooks (1923),
Duckworth (1922), Glueck (1923), Kirk (1922), Macnaghten (1922), Orton (1935), and Stowe (1923).

12.1 Participants
Coué conducted two-hour sessions four times a day (two in the morning, two in the afternoon) and
treated up to sixty individuals at one time. Participants would wait for Coué outside his two-storied
clinic building. The crowd would include foreign visitors, first-timers, current patients seeking their next
treatment, recent patients seeking a ‘top up’, and former patients wanting to thank Coué for curing them
(see Stott, 1922; Coué, 1923a, facing p.57).

Once inside, they sat in two tightly packed groups—half in his office, half in the adjoining parlour. The
connecting doors were open, so all could hear everything. Randomly seated, they listened as Coué
systematically asked newcomers the nature of their distress (with an assurance that all would be
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 17

“better” soon), current patients about their progress, ‘just-here-for-a-top-up’ patients about their
experiences, and received thanks from those he had cured (see Coué, 1923a, pp.31-55).

12.2 Presentation
Coué asked them to close their eyes and listen. There was no hypnotism involved at this stage; he
simply wanted to divert their attention from their (crammed) {71} environment, and have them listen to
his voice (an advantage, given his continual moving in and out of sight when going from one room to
the other). He was also conditioning them to accept the notion that it was quite safe to relax and fully
concentrate on his words.

His presentation was based on his 1912 lecture, plus several later refinements. He explained about our
‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ selves, and how the two selves operated through their associated
faculties—personified as “the will” and “the imagination” respectively. The ‘unconscious self ’, he said,
controlled important functions, such as digestion and—despite the fact that it was so credulous and
trustful of any ideation it might contain—the ‘unconscious mind’ was, by far, the more powerful of the
two. Participants conducted his ‘walking the plank’ thought experiment. After discussing other
examples of counter-productive, unconsciously held ideas, he concluded that we were just powerless
marionettes with our ‘unconscious minds’ holding the strings.

He continued, explaining the difference between ‘suggestion’ and ‘autosuggestion’. If, ‘suggestion’
was the activity of driving an idea into the brain of another (note that he used ‘cerveau’, brain, rather
than ‘esprit’, mind: 1912, p.29), he said, and if ‘autosuggestion’ was the implantation of an idea within
oneself, by oneself (‘l’implantation d’une idée en soi-même par soi-même’: ibid.), his research had clearly
revealed that a ‘suggestion’ was only effective to the extent that it had been converted into an
‘autosuggestion’. He then spoke of the positive and negative psychophysical outcomes of various sorts
of unconsciously suggested ideas, emphasising that the power of these (unconsciously-held) ideas is a
direct consequence of the effortless nature (due to their unconsciously-held-ness) in which they realise
the suggestion in question (through the ideodynamic principle of action); and, at the same time, reminding
them of his demonstration (via the ‘walking the plank’ thought experiment) that any conscious effort
was useless.

He explained how the conscious, intentional use of self-suggestion can counteract undesirable,
unconsciously held autosuggestions, elaborating on the four empirically determined conclusions he had
drawn on the relative strengths of consciously held ‘ideas’ (“the will”) and unconsciously held ‘ideas’ (“the
imagination”) held at the same time (see Part II: Yeates, 2016b). He spoke of his ‘nail in the plank’ analogy
(see Part I: Yeates, 2016a) and, to demonstrate the principle, he asked his patients to open their eyes and
undertake his four “experiences”. Not all were asked to perform each one, because observing another’s
responses to the postural-sway test served his purpose well enough; but all were asked to undertake the
hand-clasp “experience” (see Coué 1922b, pp.17-18)—which could be performed without leaving one’s
seat. By this stage more than ninety-minutes had elapsed.
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 18

He then asked them to close their eyes, lightly hypnotised them, and delivered his entire ego-
strengthening monologue. Once alerted, he told them that, in order to transform the monologue’s
suggestions into reality, they must perform the self-{72}administration ritual (which he then described)
and consciously and effortlessly self-administer the formula twice a day. He taught them his “no-pain”
procedure. His performance closed with him further orienting participants’ mind-sets towards
transformation with an account of some representative case studies.

13. Final Observations

[Those] things which seem miraculous to you have a perfectly natural cause; if they seem
extraordinary it is only because the cause escapes you.
When you know that, you realize that nothing could be more natural.
(Coué, 1922b, pp.36-37)

Coué’s well-polished collective treatment routine was just as much an entertainment—a performance à
la Maskelyne (1911)—as it was an exercise of prestige, influence, persuasion, and hypnotic conditioning. A
thorough examination of the routine’s procedure draws attention to, at least, the following:
(1) A subject’s decision to present for treatment was, from Coué’s perspective, a decision to seek
transformation; and he strove to capitalise on the response expectancy embodied within that
decision.
(2) Coué was an expert hypnotist; and his routine was an intricate admixture of hypnotism and
suggestion. The prestige already accorded to him was increased by the impact of his polished
performance; which, in turn, brought a concomitant increase in the prestige of his suggestions.
(3) As an expert, Coué knew the significant difference between an operator-made suggestion and a
subject-taken suggestion, and the importance of converting what was just ‘a suggestion’ into an
autosuggestion. He knew that suggestions had a cumulative effect, and that suggestions
presented in a logical sequence were far more efficacious than those which were not.
(4) Given Coué’s concentration on collective treatment—and, therefore, on the (meta-level)
enterprise of subject ‘self-mastery’—his remarkably innovative ego-strengthening routine also
served to engage and activate the vis conservatrix naturæ and vis medicatrix naturæ.
(5) His explanations delivered an understanding of the ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious selves’; his
thought experiments provided knowledge by acquaintance of the faculties denoted “the will” and
“the imagination”; and the objective evidence provided by his “experiences” demonstrated “the
imagination” was, indeed, far more powerful than “the will”.
(6) His case studies activated aspirations for relief, created expectations of transformation, and
implied that continuous self-administration of his formula would bring exceptional benefit.
Coué’s stress on his subjects’ self-initiated, self-directed efforts, significantly enhanced their
perception of an increasingly internal locus of control (see Johnson, 1979).
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 19

{73}
(7) Given his need for a single idea to saturate the cognitive environment of ‘the mind’ such that it
became a ‘dominant idea’, Coue eventually settled on an ancient, tried-and-true Hesychast
ritual and, from that, he constructed a formula (“Every day in every way I’m getting better and
better”) that was appropriate to his therapeutic goals and, also, to the ritual’s mechanics.
(8) The formula activated the psychophysical resources required to effect the desired changes; and
subjects used a ‘prayer-rope’, with twenty knots, to ensure that the counting of the repetitions
demanded no alert attention.
(9) The formula was self-administered twice daily “every morning before rising and every evening
on getting into bed” (Coué, 1922b, p.23); and these twice-daily rituals functioned as metonymical
acts (see Topley, 1976, p.254) in three different ways. They were:
(a) intentional acts of self-mastery, both in the sense of the deliberate, conscious decision to act in a
specific, particular way each evening and each morning, and in the innate capacity of the
procedure so enacted to generate an increased level of ‘self-mastery’;
(b) intentional acts of termination, closing off the ‘business’ of the day and the ‘business of the
night’, respectively; and
(c) intentional acts of beginning, orienting one’s mind to engaging in a more peaceful and
rejuvenating sleep, and to emerging into a more active and productive day, respectively.

14. Conclusion
Most acquire their knowledge of Coué’s work from the widely available, yet obscure and confusing
work Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion (viz., 1922b):

This book contains a complete exposition of the Coué System of Autosuggestion,

presenting in a direct and efficient manner, its theories, methods and amazing cures, with
practical suggestions for personal application and self-cure, simply and clearly explained.
(dust-cover)

Although a faithful translation of La Maîtrise de soi-même par l’autosuggestion consciente—and despite the
blurb’s assertions for ‘Self Mastery’—‘La Maîtrise’ was never intended to be a stand-alone text; and, in
fact, ‘Self Mastery’ was published without Coué’s knowledge or consent.

‘La Maîtrise’ was specifically written as an aide-mémoire for those ‘already in the know’.

It was first published in the Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology’s journal in 1921. Coué sold
offprints of the article (viz., 1922a) to his French-speaking audiences immediately after each
performance—again, as an aide-mémoire.
 Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way 20

Coué’s representations, techniques and strategies are deeply embedded within all of hypnotherapy.
The three articles have located, exhumed, and examined a wide range of disparate sources, described the
origins, history and evolution of the method from its beginning to its final form, and have presented a
structured account of his method, its ego-strengthening procedure, its formula and its self-
{74}administration rituals. In the spirit of respectfully acknowledging the importance and the ongoing
significance of Coué’s groundbreaking, watershed work, they have dutifully presented an ordered,
coherent, and historically relevant set of materials and, in the process, have identified important
resources (including URLs, if available) for the general edification of the casual interested reader, for the
inspiration of the tyro hypnotherapist, and (hopefully) to serve as a valuable guide for the further,
ongoing, self-directed study of the diligent professional.
======================================================
{75}

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