ABSTRACT
A Bulgarian physician, psychiatrist and educational researcher, Georgi Lozanov has spent more than 30 years investigating and applying the phenomenon of suggestion in a wide range of learning contexts. Lozanov repeatedly speaks of liberating man’s extraordinary innate potential. His theory and methodological perspective focuses one-pointedly on that goal. According to Lozanov, man’s “reserve capacities” (or untapped potential) are not so much dormant as they are held in check by what Lozanov calls the socio-suggestive norms, i.e. our conditioning. The brain, consciously and para-consciously receives, orders, codes, retrieves and utilizes the stimuli coming from the outside world in certain ways. Lozanov describes three major types of suggestopedic means: psychological, didactic, and artistic. The psychological means focus on the teacher’s skill in maintaining the appropriate suggestive atmosphere while focusing on the goal of tapping the reserve capacities of the students.
