The characteristic point about suggestion is obviously in the fact that we may be made by it to conceive, perceive, judge, and even act, without due cause (*) (Lipps has given a similar definition).

(*) From the point of view of the person suggested.

We mustplace chief emphasis on the words, " Without due cause." These words imply a dual condition: The individual as a rule is either complying with the conditions set by reality or is pursuing ends that emanate from his own total personality. We assume that the individual builds up ideal egos which have the function of regulating the relations to reality, which unite the ego impulses as units and which thus not only comply with the demands of society, but also with the demands of the ego's personality. One of the present authors has explained in another work that the attainment of reality in perception, in conception, and in thinking, is as much a demand of the ideal egos as it is a demand of society, for the ideal egos also adjust the personality to reality. As a rule we have a right to speak of suggestion only in cases in which the suggestion secures the individual's opposition to his ego ideals. If the ego ideals are ultimately in conformity with the suggestion, we have no further reason to speak of suggestion as such. One of the present authors pointed out in another work that the affective mechanisms present affinities in their ultimate bases, but that it is by no means practical, merely because of the existence of transition cases, to apply to the entire domain a term whose extremes represent definitely outlined psychological types. This being the case, it becomes necessary to reject the latest attempt of Strauss to expand the definition of the notion of suggestion to cover in principle the entire daily life of faith, belief, etc. Like Strauss, we admit the " we " experience. This latter is built on the ego and on the directly sensed simple or multiple " thou." The fact that identifications influence the ultimate form of this We in a decisive manner may be fully granted, although we cannot at this place investigate in detail the question of the share of the identifications in the formation of the " We." There is no doubt that it is also true, as Strauss says, that convictions are dependent on the totality situation, on the living We. Doubtless spiritual acquiescence, faith, belief, are closely connected with the personalities of our environment. But both psychoanalysis and one of the present writers have never failed to point out this fact. Suggestion, however, is distinguished from the other above named phenomena by the fact that the central personality has not the same attitude toward the suggestion with which it complies and the other opinions which it accepts. And it is precisely this particular form of the experience that must be explained; Strauss cannot offer the needed explanation because he refuses to see the problem.

The definition given at the head of this chapter includes also the fact that we are dealing with both a suggesting and a suggested personality. At any rate, this fundamental type must be borne in mind. In the suggestion state, something is thought, conceived, or done, to please another, although it contradicts the ideal ego. This phase also must be borne in mind. It is perfectly clear that if I do a certain thing to please another person, it is my feelings which are involved ; that the other person does not really attain its power of suggesting to me until he secures my cooperation, the use of my feelings. But it would be wrong psychology to assume that the other person is therefore of no consequence and that the root of the suggestion is autosuggestion, a doctrine which is supported by Coue and Baudouin. Similarly it would be wrong to say that there is no education but self-education, because the thoughts and feelings aroused by the educator are my thoughts and feelings. We shall have to cling, in principle, to the fact that hypnosis and suggestion are concerned with a process proceeding between two persons. An apparent contradiction to this formulation is in the fact that it is, after all, impossible to deny the presence of autosuggestion. Here again we should consider it to be a useful distortion of ideas to continue to speak of autosuggestion whenever an action that fails to correspond with the ideal egos as accommodated to reality, out of thoughts, ideas, impulses, of any kind. We have a right to speak of autosuggestion in the correct sense of the word only when the individual consciously introduces a cleavage of his experience into groups and thus creates a suggestor within himself. We shall not go wrong if we assume that the individual can succeed in bringing about such a cleavage only by identifying himself with another personality. The conception of identification is of sufficient importance to deserve more detailed discussion. We may speak of identification when a part of the experience of another is claimed as our own, and we thus acknowledge that we should like to occupy his position (i.e., stand in the boots) of the other person. In the process of identification we play a part without necessarily being conscious of having assumed this part. We have an interest in playing the part of another only when we love, honor, admire, this other. The example given by Freud is taken from Schiller's Wallenstein's Lager, in which we read, concerning a sergeant-major of cavalry (Wachmeister) :

" Und wie er sich rauspert und wie er spuckt, Das habt ihr ihm glucklich abgeguckt."(*)

The Wachmeister is completely unaware that he has acquired habits that serve as an expression of his desire to be like and to be esteemed like Wallenstein himself. No doubt this soldier loves and admires Wallenstein. In part, he has himself become Wallenstein, but he still recognizes the worth of the esteemed and valued object. If the identification had become complete, Wallenstein would have become superfluous to him. To use the analytic terms, the Wachmeister would then abstract the libidinous cathexis from Wallenstein and concentrate it entirely on the Wallenstein within him. The identification would then be a perfect one. But the Wallenstein within him still retains a certain special position. The case is similar to that of the teacher whom we may once have loved but have now outgrown, whom we believe we can now dispense with, because we have identified ourselves with him. It is out of the identification, as has been mentioned, that our conscience is built up, which arises from our identification with parents, teachers, etc., but also from our identification with all the individuals about us who represent society and its demand, and even the parents, teachers, etc., are in the last analysis representatives of this society also. Every identification creates for itself an ego ideal, which always retains a certain independence within the ego.(**) On such identifications, on such ego ideals, is based the possibility of an autosuggestion in which a section of the individual detaches itself to a certain extent as an ideal ego from the ego and assumes the role of a suggestor toward the remaining portion of the ego. The use of the term autosuggestion by Coue and Baudouin and their therapeutic methods is fundamentally misleading.

(*)" His belching and expectoration, So far extends your imitation."

(**) Freud's ideas have been carried further by one of the present authors in his " Entwurf zu einer Psychiatrie auf psychoanalytischer Basis."

For it is obvious that it is the physician and the pedagogue who present the demand which is thereupon accepted and appropriated by the patient and the pupil. We may at best only admit that the technique applied by Coue and Baudouin in its repeated emphasis on the share of the suggested individual himself makes clearer the entrance of the suggesting person into the ideal ego within the framework of the personality itself. We shall not be in a position to understand this entire situation until we have gone more deeply into the psychological structure of hypnosis with the aid of the psychoanalytic point of view.

It is obvious from the material communicated in the preceding chapter that beyond the suggestive relation between hypnotizer and hypnotized there stands also an ego ideal which serves the ends of the total personality and exercises a continuous control over the relations between hypnotized and hypnotizer, between suggestor and suggested. Even aside from the fact that the suggesting person, the influencing person, attains his significance only through the psychic experience of the person influenced, the person hypnotized or influenced is by no means a mere tool of the influencing individual and without a will of his own. If a profoundly hypnotized person is asked to perform an act that is unreasonable, an act in contradiction with his total will, his total personality, the following may happen: In spite of his profound hypnosis, the hypnotized man may refuse to obey. The paranoid hypnotic subject, for instance, will not renounce his delusions although he may otherwise be highly suggestible. A jealous woman, otherwise quite susceptible to suggestion in hypnosis, will resist emphatically when asked to believe in the infidelity of her husband. A woman patient who had obtained veronal from a family nurse in order to commit suicide, will refuse to communicate the name of the nurse in spite of a suggestibility that is otherwise perfect. Other hypnotized persons will awake from their hypnosis if the demand of the hypnotizer as well as the total situation are no longer in accord with his other ego ideals. Such observations must be taken as decisive in the question of the relations between hypnosis and crime. We shall postpone a detailed discussion of this problem until after we have given a psychoanalytic theory of hypnosis.