Suggestion Therapeutic (Translated)

Of the norms presented here, which summarize an experience of more than thirty years, several are not part of any of the usual methods of suggestion, and among the rest some are modifications of norms followed in some of those. That a much better method of suggestion is possible than the usual ones should not be surprising. The means to give to the suggested idea or image the maximum intensity, and therefore the maximum effectiveness, have much more relation to psychology than to the ordinary medical knowledge: moreover very few physicians apply real cures by suggestion and these ones do it too rarely or do not study to go perfecting their procedures enough to be able to discover certain norms that only a long, varied and meditated practice of suggestion can teach. The advantages of the present method over the usual ones consist: in a constant harmlessness of the procedures in placing the sick person in that state of mind which is almost always indispensable; in a very great increase in the number and variety of cases in which results are obtained which no other cure can give; and in a much more frequent stability of the results obtained. If the book has a rather large number of pages, the norms, however, occupy only a small part of it, the largest part being occupied by explanations; moreover, many norms are only rarely applied, and some (as will result from what will be said about their office) are not indispensable except in cases that are difficult to treat, while in others an eventual neglect of some of them does not cause greater damage than a delay in obtaining the result. The health conditions in which I found myself during the preparation of the first edition induced me to finish it hastily, fearing that otherwise I would not have had the possibility. The additions and many modifications that I have introduced in this second edition will certainly make the book much more worthy of the favor that the first one received.