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Posted by bio_man   March 2, 2023   2138 views

If emotions can make you sick, if a belief that you will die can kill you (as in voodoo deaths), and if a sugar pill that you believe is a powerful drug can take away your pain, can a belief that you can bring about your own recovery help you to recover?

Even with acceptance of the role of emotional factors in both illness and recovery, the assumption has persisted that emotional factors work on an unconscious level, and because of this they are not subject to voluntary control. Most of us still see illness as something that happens to us.

Dr. Carl Simonton, chief of radiation at Travis Air Force Base, questioned this assumption. He was impressed by demonstrations that people could learn to control autonomic processes through biofeedback and had observed that some cancer patients sent home to die were still alive and active years later, with no other explanation than statements like: "I can’t die till my son graduates from college" or "They need me too much at work." After intensive study of many psychological techniques in which visual imagery was a central component, Simonton was ready in 1971 to try his hypothesis that cancer patients could participate intentionally in their own recovery.

His first candidate was a 61-year-old man with a throat cancer so advanced he could barely swallow and had trouble breathing. His weight had dropped from 130 to 98 pounds. He had less than a 5 percent chance of surviving five years, and the doctors feared that radiation therapy might make him more miserable without affecting his cancer.

Dr. Simonton explained to the patient how he could influence the course of his disease and instructed him to set aside three short periods a day for relaxing all parts of his body and then imagining his cancer being attacked by millions of tiny energy bullets from the radiation, that would hit all the cells but damage only the confused, weakened cancer cells. Then the patient was to visualize the body’s white blood cells swarming over the cancer cells and carrying off the dead and dying ones, flushing them out through the liver and kidneys while the cancer got smaller.

The results were dramatic. There were almost no negative reactions to the radiation, the patient was able to start eating again halfway through the treatment, and two months later there was no sign of cancer. At last check, six years later, the patient was healthy and fully active. Though not all cases have been so successful, Dr. Simonton has continued to supplement physical therapy with relaxation, imagery, and other processes. He and his wife, a motivational research psychologist, have established the Cancer Counseling Center in Dallas, Texas.

The Simontons believe that we are all exposed to many carcinogens and that everyone produces abnormal cells from time to time, but that normally, our immunological defenses prevent cancer from developing. However, the functioning of the immune system is known to be impaired by chronic stress or following experiences of extreme loss, including loss of meaning in life. Many patients report such an experience of loss about a year and a half before the onset of their cancer. By encouraging patients to realize that their emotions could have had a role in inducing the cancer, the Simontons encourage them to believe that they can participate in their recovery. Patients in this way regain confidence that they can control what happens to them. Confidence, optimism, and a sense of control, in turn, are related to better functioning of the immune system.

Similarly, Dr. Bernie Siegel states that before he can help patients suffering from various kinds of life-threatening illness, he must first learn about their attitudes towards themselves and their disease. He suggests that because patients’ emotions and attitudes may not be fully accessible to consciousness, he begins his work by exploring the patients’ answers to the following four questions:

  • Do you want to live to be a hundred? This question leads patients into a discussion of their misconceptions about aging and the level of responsibility they are willing to take for their own self care.
  • What happened to you in the year or two before your illness? With this question, patients usually identify the major stressors in their lives as well as their manner of coping with them.
  • What does the illness mean to you? This question leads patients to contextualize the illness within their lives. In their telling of its meaning, it becomes possible to understand their position in relation to the illness, their own lives, and other people. Often, responses to this question reveal the characteristics of efficacy expectations, locus of control, and the presence or absence of existential guilt—whether or not they feel a deep engagement in the process of living.
  • Why did you need this illness? This is perhaps the most sensitive of the questions in that it may be misunderstood as a form of "blaming the victim." However, the point here is that illness often gives people permission for things that they often do not otherwise believe they deserve. This question is intended to help patients realize that the emotional needs met by the illness are all valid. With this realization, patients may then seek to meet those needs in other ways.

Before concluding this discussion of the power of the mind to influence the course of disease, it is important also to pose the question of the limits of such power. New insights into ways we can participate in our own recovery from life-threatening illness are ultimately out of balance if we do not also consider the need to examine our attitudes towards death.

Source Siegel, B.S. (1986) Love, medicine & miracles. New York: Harper & Row.

Immune System Mind control Power of the mind Cancer Research
Posted in Interesting Facts
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