g
mental states in which their opposites predominate. The name
Reflective Suggestion, which Baudouin applies indifferently to all
autosuggestions induced by the subject's own choice, might well be
reserved for this specific form of particular suggestion.

The field for the exercise of particular suggestions is practically
limitless. Whenever you feel a need for betterment, of whatever nature
it may be, a particular suggestion will help you. But it must once
more be repeated that these particular suggestions are merely aids and
auxiliaries, which may, if leisure is scant, be neglected.

CHAPTER IX

HOW TO DEAL WITH PAIN

Pain, whether of mind or body, introduces a new element for which we
have hitherto made no provision. By monopolising the attention it
keeps the conscious mind fully alert and so prevents one from attaining
the measure of outcropping needful to initiate successfully an
autosuggestion. Thus if we introduce the "no-pain" idea into the
conscious, it is overwhelmed by its contrary--pain, and the patient's
condition becomes, if anything, worse.

To overcome this difficulty quite a new method is required. If we
speak a thought, that thought, while we speak it, must occupy our
minds. We could not speak it unless we thought it. By continually
repeating "I have no pain" the sufferer constantly renews that thought
in his mind. Unfortunately, after each repetition the pain-thought
insinuates itself, so that the mind oscillates between "I have no pain"
and "I have some pain," or "I have a bad pain." But if we repeat our
phrase so rapidly that the contrary association has no time to insert
itself, we compel the mind willy-nilly to dwell on it. Thus by a fresh
path we reach the same goal as that attained by induced outcropping; we
cause an idea to remain in occupation of the mind without calling up a
contrary association. This we found to be the prime condition of
acceptation, and in fact by this means we can compel the Unconscious to
realise the "no-pain" thought and so put an end to the pain.

But the sentence "I have no pain" does not lend itself to rapid
repetition. The physical difficulties are too great; the tongue and
lips become entangled in the syllables and we have to stop to restore
order. Even if we were dexterous enough to articulate the words
successfully, we should only meet with a new difficulty. The most
emphatic word in the phrase is "pain"; involuntarily we should find
o