author
Emile Coué
1857–1926
Best remembered for popularizing conscious autosuggestion, this French pharmacist and hypnotist turned simple, repeated affirmations into one of the early 20th century’s most recognizable self-help methods. His famous optimism-heavy approach influenced readers and patients far beyond France.
1 Audiobook
Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion
by Emile Coué
About the author
Born in Troyes, France, in 1857, Émile Coué trained as a pharmacist and later developed a strong interest in hypnosis and suggestion. He became known for observing that patients often responded not just to medicines, but also to the expectations and encouraging ideas that surrounded their treatment.
From those observations, he developed the method he called conscious autosuggestion. Rather than emphasizing force of will, Coué argued that imagination played the larger role in shaping behavior and well-being. His ideas reached a wide audience in the 1910s and 1920s, especially through group sessions, lectures, and the phrase associated with his method: "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."
Coué died in 1926, but his work remained part of the long history of self-help, psychotherapy, and mind-body thinking. Even when later readers disagreed with parts of his theory, his influence helped bring positive suggestion and mental rehearsal into popular conversation.