Suggestion of various kinds is a very powerful factor, and as in the example given above, it is for the most part an unconscious factor in determining our actions. But it is possible for us to give ourselves conscious suggestions which will afterwards cause us to act automatically, in accordance with the suggestion. A great deal too much, however, has been claimed for suggestion in recent months. There are many circumstances in which suggestion is not likely to be any good at all, there are also circumstances when it may arouse an actual opposition in the unconscious mind, where a counter-suggestion is set at work immediately, and the condition of the individual may actually be worse than before he started giving himself suggestions.
Apart from other things, one factor may be mentioned which is very antagonistic to suggestion, and that is fear, possibly fear which is for the most part unconscious. Thus, supposing that the alcoholic gives himself the suggestion that he shall pass a public-house without going into it, and he has a definite fear of the wish to go in; he will probably find that in suggesting that he shall not have the wish, he is actually re-enforcing the strength of the wish which is there. His unconscious counter-will is at work, and turning the force of the suggestion in the wrong direction, and he will very likely succumb to temptation more readily than before. Hence, in a subject where we have acute fear of failure, suggestion must be very carefully dealt with. Moreover, suggestion, to be efficient, must have other things in its favour, some knowledge, in fact, of the underlying causes of the deleterious action which we wish to eradicate. It is not impossible to improve oneself by suggestion, even though one may be ignorant of the cause of one’s trouble, but I have found that it is infinitely more easy to obtain this improvement if one has previously brought into consciousness the underlying cause, and can therefore direct one’s suggestion to this rather than merely to the effect or symptom. I have myself devised a method for the use of certain of my patients by means of which suggestion may be directed to both the cause and result, as indicated shortly. Ordinary methods of suggestion are frequently merely directed to the cure of the symptom rather than the disease; in fact, such auto-suggestion, popular as it has become, may frequently be likened to a doctor who treats small-pox by putting ointment on the spots, or appendicitis by giving morphia. It will be successful in those cases where the manifestations of the disease are worse than the disease itself; but when the causes are strong and virile, suggestion directed towards the symptom will not avail.
In an earlier chapter, we described how the individual suffering from deleterious abnormalities of temperament could, to some extent, trace the cause of this back to infancy. We told how this, in itself, would, if repeatedly brought to mind on succeeding occasions, produce considerable improvement. We have further discussed how he could consciously turn the energy from one form of reaction into another and more suitable form. All these methods, however, may be made considerably more efficient by the active use of auto-suggestion, as I have indicated, directed partially to the cause and partially to the result desired. Thus, the form which suggestion should take in the case of the man, whom we quoted in the last chapter as being over-impatient in the restaurant, would be somewhat as follows:
He would have to impress upon himself several suggestions; and in the case of each of these suggestions he would be required to form a mental picture of himself in the conditions to which the suggestions referred. Firstly, “In circumstances in which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I will no longer act as I did when I was a little child.” (In repeating this to himself in the manner to be referred to shortly, he should hold a picture of himself reacting impatiently when a child, and contrast it with the manner in which he ought to have acted.) Secondly, “Under conditions which have previously caused me to react with impatience, I will in future, at once think out the real circumstances of the case.” (And another suitable mental picture should be visualised here, as also in each of the following suggestions.) Thirdly, “Under conditions which previously caused me to react with impatience, I will no longer be impatient.” Fourthly, “Under conditions to which I have been accustomed to react with impatience, I shall now devote my energy to perfecting myself, in reality.” Thus, he is taking himself through the stages from childhood onward, and re-educating himself in each stage by means of a forced education in which the individual “grows up” in reality from the point at which he stopped in childhood.
Not one, but all these thoughts, and possibly even intermediate ones that may develop, should be impressed upon the unconscious mind, so that they may act automatically. As to the method which should be adopted by the patient in giving himself suggestions, I recommend the following. That he first of all write down briefly the results of his self-examination, that he should take those results in chronological order, and write down from them suitable suggestions dealing with the various stages, such as I have just written with regard to the impatient man. That every night and morning, or at any other time during the day, he should for five or ten minutes lie down, relax himself, and close his eyes; that he should then repeat to himself fifteen or twenty times each of the suggestions, taking the earliest first, then the next, and so on. They need not be repeated out loud, but if repeated under the breath and accompanied by a suitable movement of the lips, it will suffice. Effort should be avoided; suggestion is not an effort of will so much as an impression effected by the imagination. When an individual is giving himself suggestion, he is not fighting an active battle, he is merely allowing ideas to sink into his mind; and if they are repeated often enough, like drops of water which in time wear a channel in the stone, they will make their mark and produce their effects in due course.
Suggestion, in fact, minimises the need for the use of will-power, at any given moment in a difficult situation. If the battle has been fought out beforehand in imagination, it will automatically succeed when the time comes. The will has played its part previously when adopting the method of suggestion.
This is not a text-book on suggestion, and I do not propose to go further into the method here. I merely wish to point out the practical efficiency of the use of a certain amount of auto-suggestion when applied in conjunction with the other methods of combating Narcissism already outlined, and when applied in an intelligent manner, so that not merely the symptoms, but the original causes themselves shall be affected by it.