What is Autosuggestion?

I find some of these comments interesting. I was in high school when I saw the first hypnosis examples. Our psychology teacher hypnotized some of the classmates one afternoon. It was sad, as one was my best friend. He asked her if she was "daddy's little girl or "mommy's little girl - she replied, no - I am no one's little girl, and then she started to cry. That was the end of the session. He spoke to her quietly and she did not remember it.

I was one of the few people he said were not susceptible to hypnosis. He explained it as having a strong will or perhaps a guard up - probably due to a trauma in my life.

I do know we are all creations of our past. People who argue that the past should be forgotten, seem not to realize how we have been shaped by events in our lives, how we responded and how we were treated. Everything that happened to us from the moment of birth, perhaps before - who knows -- makes us the person we are today.

The really lucky ones have had loving parents and grew up feeling loved, and knowing they were OK. Being told that their actions, their life was good. I know how it is to be constantly criticized, and to have the intrusive thoughts that no matter how hard I may try, never go away.

@everetra - I’ve heard something that also struck me as somewhat of a paradox. It’s that people who are more intelligent are more susceptible to suggestion and autosuggestion than people who might be less smart.

That seems strange. You’d think the opposite would be true. The reasoning seems to be that the intelligent people are more “open” to ideas, and so autosuggestion takes root more easily in their minds. Oh well, I guess that’s why I’ve never had much luck with the self help books.

@hamje32 - It’s interesting that you talk about hypnosis. I’ve never seen real life hypnotic trances, and I guess I’m open to the possibility that it does work.

However, I’d be more interested in the therapeutic uses of autosuggestion than those that are simply used for entertainment value. For example, I would like to learn more about how people use autosuggestion to kick bad habits like smoking or drinking too much.

I believe it’s been used in therapy to help people with their addictions; in that regard, I think it should be accepted by the medical profession so that we can see more peer reviewed studies on how well it works.

@NathanG - I grew up on Robert Schuller’s The Power of Positive Thinking, as well as Napoloean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. It’s amazing how these two seminal works on positive thinking have become the basis for just about everything else you see today on self improvement.

It’s all the same stuff, except maybe worded a little differently and put in different packages. I think it is true – you create your own future by what you believe about yourself, how you see yourself.

I don’t believe everyone can become a millionaire just by “thinking” it to be so, but the reality is we are all where we are today, because of yesterday’s thoughts, in my opinion.

I saw firsthand the power of autosuggestion techniques at a company conference we had a couple of years ago. For our dinner entertainment, we invited a well known hypnotist in the area to come and offer to hypnotize some of the employees.

He had several volunteers come forward. One in particular was a very extroverted lady in our company and within minutes she was the life of the party. He had her respond to various hypnotic suggestions, everything from pretending like she was in a movie theater watching a funny film, to recalling a bunch of childhood memories and acting them out.

It was funny and sad at the same time because the emotions were so raw. She didn’t seem like she was faking it. Afterwards I asked her what it was like. She told me it was like a walking dream. She knew what she was doing, but didn’t know why. That was eerie, but it made a believer out of me.