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To lie down on a lounge on which hundreds have been cured fascinates the imagination sufficiently to give to every suggestion a much better chance to overcome the counter-idea. The expectation that something wonderful will happen can even produce an almost hypnoid state. The effect will be the greater, the less the barriers of systematic knowledge hinder the entrance of suggested ideas.
The brain may be for instance inclined to overstrong impulses, so that any desire rushes to action before the inhibiting counter-idea gets to work. Or, on the other hand, the brain may have unusually weak counter-ideas so that even a normal impulse does not find its normal checking.
The effort to hold the counter-idea before consciousness may be unsuccessful so long as it is only an idea which tries in vain to produce any motor effect; but if the action itself has been repeatedly gone through, the idea will find it easier to settle and it becomes vivid in proportion to the openness of the channels of motor discharge. This holds true even for emotional states.
It is true, Lydgate had the counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a shadow east by other resolves which themselves were capable of shrinking.
Instead of it I gave the impulse to the counter-idea, that is, I reënforced the attention towards that which he really saw around him and thus withdrew the attention from the rival image in the mind. The success was complete.
Moreover in very frequent cases, for instance, of neurasthenia or hysteria or psychasthenia, such wholesale remedies can form only the background of the treatment, but all the details have to be furnished with reference to a most subtle analysis of the special symptoms, and a particular organic symptom or a particular memory idea or a special inhibition by a well-selected counter-idea will do much more than any great emotional revival.
As soon as he has passed through a few times, a new tactual-visual image of the whole complex is secured for his consciousness and this image works then as a new cue for the entire voluntary action, overcoming the associated counter-idea.
The psychotherapist assures the patient that he will sleep the next night or that the pain will disappear or that he will be able to walk with such firmness that the counter-idea is undermined.
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