Charles Baudouin’s Suggestion and Autosuggestion

By the end of the nineteenth century, Emile Coué had come to the view that autosuggestion was a powerful force that had wider application than had been appreciated. Furthermore, hypnotic suggestion, he asserted, was only one form of autosuggestion. Coué’s work, and that of the New Nancy School, was outlined in Charles Baudouin’s Suggestion and Autosuggestion (1920), a work that seems to get little comment in historical accounts of hypnosis.

It was the generally held view that in any suggestion two phases can be distinguished. First, an idea is proposed or imposed by another person and is accepted by the subject. Second, the idea undergoes transformation into an action, and the idea proposed is realised in some way. The New Nancy School asserted that the first was not an essential characteristic of suggestion, but that the second was. It is not necessary to have the idea proposed or imposed by a second person. It is necessary, however, that the subject makes a suggestion to himself or herself: that they engage in autosuggestion. For this reason, autosuggestion is more widespread than suggestion, and is the prototype for all suggestion. Because suggestion was at the heart of hypnosis, and because hypnosis assumed that the subject's will was made subservient to that of the hypnotist, then suggestion was confused with subjection. Furthermore, suggestion is more than simply an idea that undergoes transformation into an action, it is realised by means of some unconscious activity and is beyond the individual's conscious awareness. In brief, suggestion is the subconscious realisation of an idea.

A prerequisite of autosuggestion is attention, since only be paying attention to an idea can it becomes realized. Spontaneous suggestion and voluntary (reflective) suggestion involve spontaneous and voluntary attention and together constitute autosuggestion; induced suggestion is heterosuggestion. Baudouin argues that autosuggestion had been generally neglected because it was an unconscious act and accordingly occurs without us being aware of it. He discusses fascination and obsession as typical examples of spontaneous suggestion, pointing out the importance of attention in these states. Like attention, another element of suggestion is emotion. The idea of an emotion will often lead to this emotion. From these and other discussions Baudouin derives four laws of suggestion:

            1. the law of concentrated attention,
            2. the law of auxiliary emotion,
            3. the law of reverse effort,
            4. the law of unconscious teleology.

The law of concentrated attention asserts that if you pay attention to an idea then that idea will become realized. The law of auxiliary emotion asserts that if an idea is combined with a powerful emotion, then it is more likely that the idea will be realized. The law of reverse effort asserts, “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.”  (Baudouin, p.116, italics in original.) The law of unconscious teleology asserts that when the end has been suggested, then the unconscious mind will find the means for its realization.

Baudouin defines hypnosis as the immobilisation of attention. There are two kinds of immobilisation of attention: fixation and seesaw. Fixation is where attention is on a single sensation, while seesaw occurs when attention is on two haunting sensations that continually repeat themselves. When immobilisation of attention occurs we relax. An individual immobilising their attention, then, achieves autohypnosis.

After providing a detailed discussion of autosuggestion, Baudouin provides some practical suggestions for autosuggestion. It his here that he discusses Coué's work, and his famous maxim “Day by day, in all respects, I get better and better.” (Coué's maxim has been quoted in various ways, but this is the exact wording given by Baudouin, including the italicised phrase ‘in all respects’.)

Although autosuggestion takes place at the unconscious level, Baudouin emphasises that it is not the same as the will and should not be confounded with it. Furthermore, autosuggestion will only be effective if it is done with the minimum of effort. This Baudouin claims is the chief discovery of the New Nancy School .