暗示的“魔力” | 《健康之道》连载（28）

摘译自《健康之道》1984年4月8日

我们将继续口述，开始新的一章，标题是：“暗示与健康”。

暗示通常是针对一个特定行为或假设的声明。在很大的程度上，暗示与有意识的思维过程紧密相连，并遵从理性的指示。例如：“如果你如此这般，那么就必然会怎样怎样。”暗示并没有什么神奇的魔力——但只要重复得够多，而且笃定地相信，这种暗示确实会呈现出根深蒂固的习惯性。它们不再被检验，而是一字一句都被当作了真理。

它们随之被移交给人格更自动的层面，在那里它们触发了被如此强烈暗示的特定行为。许多这种暗示都是“陈腐的老生常谈”。它们属于过去，而且逃过了通常给予新观点的质疑和审查。就是如此。

因此，这些暗示可能惊人地持久，并且包含了在童年时期就接受了的信念。就是如此。它们现在被不加分辨地接受，可能仍然影响着健康与幸福。这样的暗示可以是有益的、支持性的，也可能是负面的、有害的。下面是一些很多人应该很熟悉的例子，包括了给孩子们的建议：

当然，也有很多变化的说法，比如：“如果你在雨天出门，就会得肺炎，”或者：“如果你说谎，你的舌头就会变成石头。”

父母往往出于好意给孩子这些建议以及其它类似的暗示。当子女年幼的时候，他们会不加鉴别地接受一些这类暗示，因为这些暗示的确来自一位受尊敬的大人，所以它们几乎被理解为命令。

“如果你午饭后过早去游泳，会被淹死的。”像这样一个暗示是极其危险的，因为它预言了灾难性的行为，这种行为在第一个举动完成后几乎会自动发生。显然，吃完东西后马上下水的孩子并不都会淹死。不过，这暗示本身可能导致各种各样的神经症状——恐慌或胃痉挛——这些症状可能一直持续到成年期。

这种暗示是可以被移除的，我们不久就会解释。

还有其它种类的暗示涉及到身份认同。有人可能告诉一个小孩：“你就像你妈妈一样；她总是神经质、喜怒无常。”或者：“你胖是因为你爸爸胖。”

这些都是导向某种假设的声明。再说一次，问题是这些假设往往一直未被质疑。结果是，你有一些未经检视的结构化信念，它们随后被自动执行了。

——摘译自《健康之道》第五章 “暗示与健康”

We will resume dictation, with a new chapter, to be called: "Suggestion and Health."  

Suggestions are usually statements directed toward a particular action or hypothesis. To a large extent, suggestions are tied into conscious thought processes, following the dictates of reason. For example: "If thus and thus be so, then thus and thus must follow." There is no magic connected with suggestions — but repeated often enough, and believed in fervently, such suggestions do indeed take on a deeply habitual nature. They are no longer examined, but taken for literal truth.  

They are then handed over to the more automatic levels of personality, where they trigger the specific actions that are so strongly implied. Many such suggestions are "old-hat idioms." They belong to the past, and again they escape the questioning and examination that are usually given to new ideas. Period.  

These suggestions may be remarkably long-standing, therefore, and consist of beliefs received in childhood. Period. Accepted now in the present, noncritically, they may still affect health and well-being. Such suggestions can be beneficial and supportive, or negative and detrimental. Here are some examples that should be quite familiar to many people. They consist of suggestions given to children:  

"If you go out in the rain without your rubbers, you will catch cold."  

"If you are too talkative or demonstrative, people will not like you."  

"If you run you will fall down."  

There are many variations, of course, such as: "If you go out in rainy weather, you'll get pneumonia," or: "If you tell a lie your tongue will turn to stone."  

These suggestions and others like them are often given to children by their parents with the best of intentions. When they are young, the offspring will accept some such suggestions uncritically, coming as they do from a revered adult, so that the suggestions are almost interpreted as commands.

A suggestion like: "If you go swimming too soon after lunch, you will drown," is extremely dangerous, for it predicts behavior of a disastrous nature that would follow almost automatically after the first act is performed. Obviously, children who go into the water right after eating do not all drown. The suggestion itself can lead to all kinds of nervous symptoms, however — panics, or stomach cramps — that can persist well into adulthood.  

Such suggestions can be removed, as we will explain shortly.  

There are other kinds of suggestions that involve identification. A child may be told: 'You are just like your mother; she was always nervous and moody." Or: 'You are fat because your father was fat." 

These are all statements leading toward a certain hypothesis. Again, the problem is that often the hypotheses remain unquestioned. You end up with structured beliefs unexamined, that are then automatically acted upon.

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