Coueism

   Émile Coué (1857-1926) was born at Troyes, France, and worked as a pharmacist from 1882 to 1910. During that period he studied hypnotism and autosuggestion. He acquired an unshakable belief that people could control their health, and possibly improve their personalities, by convincing themselves that they were improving. Mind over matter, some might say.

   Coue accordingly established a free clinic at Nancy where he practiced a form of psychotherapy dependent upon autosuggestion, a method known as Coueism. "This method," he declared, "clears the mind of the causes of mental and physical ailments." Coue became well-known and lectured extensively in the United States and England. He advocated that distressing ideas be eliminated from the subconscious and suggested the repetition of his key phrase: "Every day in every way, I'm getting better and better." He explained his theories in several books, the bestknown one, published in 1922, was titled Self-Mastery Through Conscious Auto-suggestion.