* * *
POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of
GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020
Copyright © 1960 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Published by arrangement with Prentice-Hall, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632
ISBN: 0-671-80628-9
First Pocket Books printing May, 1969
33rd printing
Trademarks registered in the United States and other countries.
Printed in the U.S.A.
* * *
PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS
Your Key to a Better Life
...When it is adequate and one that you can be wholesomely proud of, you feel self-confident.
POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of
GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020
Copyright © 1960 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Published by arrangement with Prentice-Hall, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632
ISBN: 0-671-80628-9
First Pocket Books printing May, 1969
33rd printing
Trademarks registered in the United States and other countries.
Printed in the U.S.A.
* * *
PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS
Your Key to a Better Life
...When it is adequate and one that you can be wholesomely proud of, you feel self-confident.
You feel free to "be yourself" and to express yourself. You function at your optimum.
When it is an object of shame, you
attempt to hide it rather than express it.
attempt to hide it rather than express it.
Creative expresTHE
SELF IMAGE 11
sion is blocked. You become hostile and hard to get along
with.
If a scar on the face enhances the self-image (as in the
case of the German duelist), self-esteem and self-confidence
are increased.
If a scar on the face detracts from the
self-image (as in the case of the salesman), loss of selfesteem
and self-confidence results.
When a facial disfigurement is corrected by plastic surgery, dramatic psychologic changes result only if there is
a corresponding correction of the mutilated self-image.
Sometimes the image of a disfigured self persists even after
successful surgery, much the same as the "phantom limb"
may continue to feel pain years after the physical arm or
leg has been amputated.
I Begin a New Career
These observations led me into a new career. Some 15
years ago I became convinced that the people who consult
a plastic surgeon need more than surgery and that some of them do not need surgery at all.
If I were to treat
these people as patients, as a whole person rather than as
merely a nose, ear, mouth, arm or leg, I needed to be in a
position to give them something more. I needed to be able
to show them how to obtain a spiritual face lift, how to
remove emotional scars, how to change their attitudes and
thoughts as well as their physical appearance.
This study has been most rewarding. Today, I am more
convinced than ever that what each of us really wants,
deep down, is more LIFE. Happiness, success, peace of
mind, or whatever your own conception of supreme good
may be, is experienced in its essence as-more life. When
we experience expansive emotions of happiness, self-confidence,
and success, we enjoy more life. And to the degree
that we inhibit our abilities, frustrate our God-given talents,
and allow ourselves to suffer anxiety, fear, self-condemnation
and self-hate, we literally choke off the life
force available to us and turn our back upon the gift
12 PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS
which our Creator has made. To the degree that we deny
the gift of life, we embrace death.
YOUR PROGRAM FOR BETTER LIVING
In my opinion, psychology during the past 30 years has
become far too pessimistic regarding man and his potentiality
for both change and greatness. Since psychologists
and psychiatrists deal with so-called "abnormal" people,
the literature is almost exclusively taken up with man's
various abnormalities, his tendencies toward self-destruction.
Many people, I am afraid, have read so much of
this type of thing that they have come to regard such
things as hatred, the "destructive insinct," guilt, selfcondemnation,
and all the other negatives as "normal
human behavior." The average person feels awfully weak
and impotent when he thinks of the prospect of pitting
his puny will against these negative forces in human
nature, in order to gain health and happiness. If this were
a true picture of human nature and the human condition,
"self-improvement" would indeed be a rather futile thing.
However, I believe, and the experiences of my many
patients have confirmed the fact, that you do not have to
do the job alone. There is within each one of us a "life
instinct," which is forever working toward health, happiness,
and all that makes for more life for the individual.
This "life instinct" works for you through what I call the
Creative Mechanism, or when used correctly the "Success
Mechanism" built into each human being.
New Scientific Insights into "Subconscious Mind"
The new science of "Cybernetics" has furnished us with
convincing proof that the so-called "subconscious mind"
is not a "mind" at all, but a mechanism—a goal-striving
"servo-mechanism" consisting of the brain and nervous
system, which is used by, and directed by mind.
The
THE SELF IMAGE 13
latest, and most usable concept is that man does not have
two "minds," but a mind, or consciousness, which "operates"
an automatic, goal-striving machine. This automatic,
goal-striving machine functions very similarly to the way
that electronic servo-mechanisms function, as far as basic
principles are concerned, but it is much more marvelous,
much more complex, than any electronic brain or guided
missile ever conceived by man.
This Creative Mechanism within you is impersonal.
It
will work automatically and impersonally to achieve
goals of success and happiness, or unhappiness and failure,
depending upon the goals which you yourself set for
it. Present it with "success goals" and it functions as a
"Success Mechanism." Present it with negative goals, and
it operates just as impersonally, and just as faithfully as a
"Failure Mechanism."
Like any other servo-mechanism, it must have a clearcut
goal, objective, or "problem" to work upon.
The goals that our own Creative Mechanism seeks to
achieve are MENTAL IMAGES, or mental pictures,
which we create by the use of IMAGINATION.
The key goal-image is our Self-image.
Our Self-Image prescribes the limits for the accomplishment
of any particular goals. It prescribes the "area of the
possible."
Like any other servo-mechanism, our Creative Mechanism
works upon information and data which we feed
into it (our thoughts, beliefs, interpretations).
Through
our attitudes and interpretations of situations, we "describe"
the problem to be worked upon.
If we feed information and data into our Creative
Mechanism to the effect that we ourselves are unworthy,
inferior, undeserving, incapable (a negative self-image)
this data is processed and acted upon as any other data
in giving us the "answer" in the form of objective experience.
Like any other servo-mechanism, our Creative Mechanism
makes use of stored information, or "memory," in
14 PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS
solving current problems and responding to current situations...
SELF IMAGE 11
sion is blocked. You become hostile and hard to get along
with.
If a scar on the face enhances the self-image (as in the
case of the German duelist), self-esteem and self-confidence
are increased.
If a scar on the face detracts from the
self-image (as in the case of the salesman), loss of selfesteem
and self-confidence results.
When a facial disfigurement is corrected by plastic surgery, dramatic psychologic changes result only if there is
a corresponding correction of the mutilated self-image.
Sometimes the image of a disfigured self persists even after
successful surgery, much the same as the "phantom limb"
may continue to feel pain years after the physical arm or
leg has been amputated.
I Begin a New Career
These observations led me into a new career. Some 15
years ago I became convinced that the people who consult
a plastic surgeon need more than surgery and that some of them do not need surgery at all.
If I were to treat
these people as patients, as a whole person rather than as
merely a nose, ear, mouth, arm or leg, I needed to be in a
position to give them something more. I needed to be able
to show them how to obtain a spiritual face lift, how to
remove emotional scars, how to change their attitudes and
thoughts as well as their physical appearance.
This study has been most rewarding. Today, I am more
convinced than ever that what each of us really wants,
deep down, is more LIFE. Happiness, success, peace of
mind, or whatever your own conception of supreme good
may be, is experienced in its essence as-more life. When
we experience expansive emotions of happiness, self-confidence,
and success, we enjoy more life. And to the degree
that we inhibit our abilities, frustrate our God-given talents,
and allow ourselves to suffer anxiety, fear, self-condemnation
and self-hate, we literally choke off the life
force available to us and turn our back upon the gift
12 PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS
which our Creator has made. To the degree that we deny
the gift of life, we embrace death.
YOUR PROGRAM FOR BETTER LIVING
In my opinion, psychology during the past 30 years has
become far too pessimistic regarding man and his potentiality
for both change and greatness. Since psychologists
and psychiatrists deal with so-called "abnormal" people,
the literature is almost exclusively taken up with man's
various abnormalities, his tendencies toward self-destruction.
Many people, I am afraid, have read so much of
this type of thing that they have come to regard such
things as hatred, the "destructive insinct," guilt, selfcondemnation,
and all the other negatives as "normal
human behavior." The average person feels awfully weak
and impotent when he thinks of the prospect of pitting
his puny will against these negative forces in human
nature, in order to gain health and happiness. If this were
a true picture of human nature and the human condition,
"self-improvement" would indeed be a rather futile thing.
However, I believe, and the experiences of my many
patients have confirmed the fact, that you do not have to
do the job alone. There is within each one of us a "life
instinct," which is forever working toward health, happiness,
and all that makes for more life for the individual.
This "life instinct" works for you through what I call the
Creative Mechanism, or when used correctly the "Success
Mechanism" built into each human being.
New Scientific Insights into "Subconscious Mind"
The new science of "Cybernetics" has furnished us with
convincing proof that the so-called "subconscious mind"
is not a "mind" at all, but a mechanism—a goal-striving
"servo-mechanism" consisting of the brain and nervous
system, which is used by, and directed by mind.
The
THE SELF IMAGE 13
latest, and most usable concept is that man does not have
two "minds," but a mind, or consciousness, which "operates"
an automatic, goal-striving machine. This automatic,
goal-striving machine functions very similarly to the way
that electronic servo-mechanisms function, as far as basic
principles are concerned, but it is much more marvelous,
much more complex, than any electronic brain or guided
missile ever conceived by man.
This Creative Mechanism within you is impersonal.
It
will work automatically and impersonally to achieve
goals of success and happiness, or unhappiness and failure,
depending upon the goals which you yourself set for
it. Present it with "success goals" and it functions as a
"Success Mechanism." Present it with negative goals, and
it operates just as impersonally, and just as faithfully as a
"Failure Mechanism."
Like any other servo-mechanism, it must have a clearcut
goal, objective, or "problem" to work upon.
The goals that our own Creative Mechanism seeks to
achieve are MENTAL IMAGES, or mental pictures,
which we create by the use of IMAGINATION.
The key goal-image is our Self-image.
Our Self-Image prescribes the limits for the accomplishment
of any particular goals. It prescribes the "area of the
possible."
Like any other servo-mechanism, our Creative Mechanism
works upon information and data which we feed
into it (our thoughts, beliefs, interpretations).
Through
our attitudes and interpretations of situations, we "describe"
the problem to be worked upon.
If we feed information and data into our Creative
Mechanism to the effect that we ourselves are unworthy,
inferior, undeserving, incapable (a negative self-image)
this data is processed and acted upon as any other data
in giving us the "answer" in the form of objective experience.
Like any other servo-mechanism, our Creative Mechanism
makes use of stored information, or "memory," in
14 PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS
solving current problems and responding to current situations...
* * *
