Christianity and Autosuggestion

Book excerpt: Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie (1857-1926) was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion. “THE distinctive feature of M. Coué’s method, compared with other popular methods of self-healing, lies in the fact that it reposes on purely psychological bases. This is its value. We may be reproached with robbing it, in this book, of its psychological foundation and confusing its clarity with mystical speculation. But this is not so. The value of M. Coué’s psychological doctrine and of his technical method is in no sense denied or depreciated in these pages. We compare and contrast his teaching with the teaching of Christ on cognate subjects. Finding between them an essential harmony, we attempt to place autosuggestion in its true position in Christian life and thought, and to utilise the Christian dynamic for extending and deepening its power. The secular practice of autosuggestion continues unaltered, but side by side with it we attempt to erect, in essential outlines, a Christian practice of autosuggestion.”—C. Harry Brooks