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rx
cancer
personality characteristics
psychospiritual approaches
definition
Personality Characteristics from multiple studies:
Created through excessive fears, guilt feelings, the inability to cope with change, self-hate or denial, and unfinished business. All lead to a major disruption in emotional, spiritual, and psychological development. When the natural cycle of growth is interfered with, unnatural growth occurs in the form of cancer cells. (Shealy, p. 178)
Brain, behavior and immunity: Depressive personality traits are associated with increased risk of developing cancer and poorer response of patients to treatment. Behavioral treatment is recommended to modify host resistance. However, there is concern that adverse effects of such a program may lead to increased guilt and depression. (Locke, 1983, p. 100)
The cruelest side effect of many nonstandard treatments is the placement of blame wholly on the patient for his illness and for the failure of the proposed cure. If the treatment does not work, it is because the patient did not eat correctly, or think correctly, or meditate correctly, or change his life style sufficiently, etc. This is an unconscionable and totally unwarranted position for any practitioner to assume, and may lead to overwhelming guilt and depression. (Salsbury, p. 162)
Personality profile per Elida Evans, Jungian analyst, in 1926 in "A Psychological Study of Cancer": Identity invested in one individual object or role (job, home, person) rather than developing their own personality. When the object or role was threatened or removed, such patients were thrown back on themselves with few internal resources for coping. Such patients put others needs before their own. Lawrence LeShan supports this basic structure in his book "Emotional Factors in the Causation of Cancer" and adds that this despair is unexpressed. These individuals were unable to let others know when they felt hurt, angry, hostile. Others frequently viewed the cancer patient as unusually wonderful people. (Simonton, p. 52)
Personality profile per C.B. Bahnson in "Stress and Cancer": Recurrent theme of loneliness and helplessness stemming from perception of parental neglect and a lack of protected and loving childhood. Subsequent feelings of depletion, emptiness, and resentment because they are unloved; behaviors marked by self-containment, inhibition, rigidity, repression, and regression which precede cancer. Somatic (cellular) "regression" hypothesized. Further vulnerability to clinical cancer when these ego defensive characteristics are compounded by grief, loss, and depression. (Locke, 1983, p. 98
Patients with cancer, unlike persons in three control groups, remembered their parents as uninvolved, cold, and not participatory in their early emotional lives. (Boyd, p. 164)
Personality profile per Simonton: tendency to harbor resentment; tendency toward self-pity; difficulty in developing and maintaining meaningful, long-term relationships; and a poor self-image or lack of self-esteem. (Simonton, p. 47-65)
In a 1980 O.C. Simonton study on the effects of psychotherapy in the treatment of advanced cancer, it was found that patients who received psychotherapy survived up to twice as long as would have been expected based on national averages. Better patient motivation, greater confidence in the treatment, and overall positive expectancy are thought to have contributed to the results. (Locke, 1986, p. 232)
Exceptional patients per B. Siegel: There are three kinds of cancer patients:
(1) 15% - 20% wish to die - consciously or unconsciously, cancer or other serious illness is a way to escape their problems; these patients show no signs of stress when informed of the diagnosis; they are usually "fine" and "nothing" troubles them.
(2) 60% - 70% perform to satisfy the physician - "like actors auditioning for a part, they act the way they think the doctor wants them to act, hoping then that the doctor will do all the work and the medicine won't taste bad"; do what they're told, unless the doctor asks them to make radical changes in lifestyle; never question the physician or strike out by doing things for themselves; would rather be operated on than actively work to get well
(3) 15% - 20% are exceptional - react to diagnosis with "fighting spirit" rather than stoic acceptance, helplessness, or hopelessness; refuse to be victims, educate themselves, question the physician because they want to understand and participate in treatment; usually considered to be difficult or uncooperative by their physicians, ask too many questions and express emotions freely; resilient, adaptable, and confident, the survivor personality can be learned and developed. (Siegel, p. 23-26, 164)
Longstanding resentment; deep hurt; deep secret or grief eating away at the self; hopelessness; carrying hatreds. (Hay, 1984, p. 159)
Correlation between life events and the occurrence of cancer in children found that significant events were likely to have occurred in the year prior to the onset of disease. From a study of 25 children by Jacobs and Charles, 1980. (Locke, 1983, p. 99)
Psychophysiology of cancer relative to family history:
There is a correlation between how close a child is to his or her parents, and the type of relationship he or she has with them, to the likelihood of forming cancer many years later. A study of 1,337 Johns Hopkins Medical School students in classes from 1948 to 1964 revealed that those students who had low scores on a close-to-parent scale developed more cancer and more mental illness, and had a higher incidence of suicide than those who had higher scores. Those with higher closeness-to-parent scores were more likely to develop hypertension and coronary occlusion. The differences held true regardless of whether the interaction measured was sibling to parent, parent to sibling, or parent to parent. These findings are consistent with the "three-hit' theory of carcinogenesis, which postulates that to develop cancer in the absence of a clear-cut, relatively biological insult, there must exist (1) a genetic predisposition to the disease, (2) adverse emotional factors (of which closeness to family could be important), and (3) a breakdown of sociobiologically integrated systems. (Mehl, 198)
Malignant neoplasms should not viewed as a 'psychogenic' nor as a 'primarily organic' disease but as an interaction of various forces, in which psychosocial factors may play an important role. Environmental stressors, as well as mediating variables at the cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological levels of adaptation are suggested as major components of a model of multidimensional pathology. Closeness to parents in childhood and the ability to form close interpersonal relationships in later adult life very possibly influence the ability of the individual to cope effectively with the environmental stressors. (Locke, 1986, p. 221)
see:
attitudinal healing
bodymind psychobiology
cancer correlations: psychoneuroimmunology
cancer treatment: immune enhancement
emotional tone scale
healing belief systems
healing power of meditation
healing power of humor
healing power of prayer
human energy fields
hypnotherapy
imagery for immune enhancement
meditation: forgiveness
nocebo effect
process paradigm
relaxation techniques
stress-hardy profile
the shadow and physical symptoms
theotherapy
treatment of chemotherapy side-effects
treatment of pain
ultradian rhythms
footnotes