CANCER IS A PSYCHOSOMATIC DISEASE?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Many of us want to say "mind me, mind" - in the sense that it is better not to think about it.

Someone will remember about heredity, and some - about bad habits and the adverse effects of the environment.

However, scientists are increasingly talking about the psychological factor as one of the causes of cancer. It turns out that none of the reasons, if it is "taken" separately, is not enough for a terrible diagnosis to appear. Cancer is a multifactorial disease, it is necessary that several components "meet". And negative emotions in this tandem of factors can play the role of a catalyst that triggers the mechanism of division of cancer cells.

But let's start with statistics.

During the 90s, 8 million people died every year from cancer in the world. The most common forms of malignant tumors were cancer of the lung (1.3 million -16%), stomach (1.0 million -12.5%), upper digestive tract (0.9 million -11%, mainly due to esophageal cancer), liver cancer (0.7 million -9%).

According to the forecasts of the World Health Organization (WHO), the incidence and mortality of cancer worldwide will double in the period from 1999 to 2020: from 10 to 20 million new cases and from 6 to 12 million registered deaths.

Considering that in developed countries there is a tendency towards a slowdown in the growth of morbidity and a decrease in mortality from malignant tumors (both due to prevention, primarily the fight against smoking, and due to improved early diagnosis and treatment), it is clear that the main increase will be in developing countries, which today should include the countries of the former USSR. Unfortunately, we should expect a dramatic increase in both the morbidity and mortality from cancer.

The emergence of tumors is based on the appearance and multiplication in the body of a tumor cell capable of transmitting the properties acquired by it in an endless number of generations. Therefore, tumor cells are considered genetically altered. The beginning of tumor growth is given by a single cell, its division and the division of new cells that arise in this process is the main way of tumor growth. The transfer and multiplication of tumor cells in other organs and tissues leads to the formation of metastases.

RESULTS OF STUDIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF CANCER DISEASES

Cancer indicates that somewhere in a person's life there were unresolved problems that were intensified or complicated due to a series of stressful situations that occurred in the period from six months to one and a half years before the onset of cancer. The typical reaction of a cancer patient to these problems and stresses is a feeling of helplessness, refusal to fight. This emotional response sets in motion a series of physiological processes that suppress the body's natural defenses and create conditions conducive to the formation of abnormal cells.

People paid attention to the connection between cancer and the emotional state of a person more than two thousand years ago. It could even be said that the neglect of this connection is relatively new and strange. Almost two millennia ago, in the 2nd century AD, the Roman physician Galen drew attention to the fact that cheerful women are less likely to get cancer than women who are often depressed. In 1701, the English physician Gendron, in a treatise on the nature and causes of cancer, pointed out its relationship with "life's tragedies, causing great trouble and grief."

One of the best studies looking at the relationship between emotional states and cancer is found in a book by a follower of Carl Jung Elide Evans "Researching Cancer from a Psychological Perspective," to which Jung himself wrote a foreword. He believed that Evans was able to solve many of the mysteries of cancer, including the unpredictability of the course of the disease, why the disease sometimes returns after years of absence of any of its symptoms, and why this disease is associated with the industrialization of society.

Based on a survey of 100 cancer patients, Evans concludes that shortly before the onset of the disease, many of them have lost significant emotional connections. She believed that they all belonged to a psychological type, inclined to associate themselves with some one object or role (with a person, work, house), and not develop their own individuality.

When this object or roles, with which a person associates himself, begins to be threatened or they simply disappear, then such patients find themselves as if alone with themselves, but at the same time they do not have the skills to cope with such situations. It is common for cancer patients to prioritize the interests of others. In addition, Evans believes that cancer is a symptom of unresolved problems in the patient's life. Her observations have been confirmed and refined by a number of later studies.

S. Banson, speaking at a conference of the New York Academy of Sciences, notes that there is a clear connection between the formation of cancer and the following conditions: depression; depression; despair; loss of the object.

H. Here, speaking at the Menninger Foundation, he concludes that cancer: appears after the loss of an irreplaceable object of attachment; appears in those people who are in a depressed state; appears in those people who suffer from a severe form of melancholy.

Bartrop (1979) - found that in a widowed spouse, distinct disorders in the immune system appear as early as five weeks after the death of the partner.

A group of researchers from Rochester has proven that cancer is mainly caused by people suffering from: stress, and they are not able to accept it; a feeling of helplessness or a feeling of abandonment; loss or threat of losing an extremely valuable source of satisfaction.

In a number of works by Russian psychologists, the “psychological profile of an oncological patient” has been investigated.

It has been found that many patients have the following traits:

- the dominant children's position in communication;

- the tendency towards externalization of the locus of control (everything depends on external circumstances, I do not decide anything);

- high formality of standards in the value sphere;

- a high threshold of perception of negative situations (they will endure for a long time;

- goals related to self-sacrifice);

- they either do not perceive their own needs at all, or ignore them. It is very difficult for them to express their feelings. At the same time, the presence of a dominant mother was most often found in the family. Cancer patients showed signs of frustration, emptiness, and the feeling that they were separated from others by a glass wall. They complain of complete internal emptiness and burnout.

RESEARCH BY DR. HUMMER

Any mental and physical illness is triggered by emotional upheavals that took place in the recent past or even in distant childhood. The more negative charge a critical situation has, the greater the potential danger it poses. The negative potential of emotional trauma in initiating various diseases is based on the “freezing” of emotions in our memory, as emotions are “stored” in the body. Emotions “frozen” in the body are capable of creating functional (non-physical) connections that inhibit the normal passage of nerve impulses in the body and prevent the normal functioning of the neural network.

German oncologist Dr. Hummer … He looked at more than 10,000 cases and found that literally in all of them, the first signs of cancer appeared one to three years after the emotional trauma. Hammer describes the emotional traumatic experience usually preceding cancer: “… you isolate yourself and do not try to share your emotions with others. You are sad, but you do not tell anyone about what torments you. It completely changes your life - you will never be the same again …”.

Since almost every area of the brain is associated with a specific organ or area of the body, the result is increased (or decreased) muscle and blood vessel tone in a specific area of the body. In his work, Hammer found a clear correspondence between the type of psychological trauma, the localization of the “closed circuit” in the brain, and the localization of the tumor in the body.

Trapped emotions begin to traumatize the brain in a specific area, similar to a minor stroke, and the brain begins to send inadequate information to a specific part of the body. As a result, blood circulation in this zone deteriorates, which leads, on the one hand, to poor nutrition of cells, and on the other hand, to poor removal of their waste products. As a result, a cancerous tumor begins to develop in this place. The type of tumor and its location are uniquely dependent on the type of emotional trauma. The rate of tumor growth depends on the severity of the emotional trauma. As soon as this happens, edema appears in the corresponding area of the brain (in the place where emotions are "trapped"), which can be easily observed on a computed tomogram. When the edema resolves, tumor growth stops and healing begins.

The immune system, due to brain injury, does not fight cancer cells. Moreover, cancer cells in this area are not even recognized by the immune system. It follows from this that the key to a complete cure for cancer is treatment, primarily of the brain. Hammer believes that childhood trauma is not the cause of cancer.

According to his research, the source is always within 1-3 years before the onset of the disease. However, it is important to understand that early injuries “pave the way” for later ones, as if teaching the brain a specific response. For treatment, Hammer used traditional psychological methods of working with trauma.

Working with the initial incident (as it is also called - the root incident) helps to completely prevent the return of symptoms of the disease. Emotional trauma underlying cancer can be very insignificant for a prying eye.

It all depends on those specific shifts in the human psyche that the negative event produces, and on the personal history - whether there is a trace in the nervous system from a chain of similar experiences, to which this incident can join.

Perhaps the most active researcher of the personality of cancer patients was Dr. Laurence Leschen … In his descriptions of a person who can get cancer:

1. is unable to express anger, especially in self-defense.

2. Feels inadequate and does not like himself.

3. is experiencing tension with one or both parents.

4. is experiencing a severe emotional loss, to which he reacts with a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, depression, a desire for isolation, i.e. just like in childhood, when he was deprived of something important.

Lawrence Leshan believes that with this typical complex of feelings, a given person can develop cancer in a period from 6 months to one year!

Based on the analysis of the psychological aspects of the life of more than 500 cancer patients, Leshan identifies four main points:

1. The youth of these people was marked by a sense of loneliness, abandonment, despair. Too much intimacy with people caused them difficulties and seemed dangerous.

2. During the early period of their lives, patients developed a deep, highly meaningful relationship with someone, or received deep satisfaction from their work. This became for some time the meaning of their existence, their whole life was built around it.

3. Then this relationship was gone from their lives. The reasons can be very different: - the death of a loved one or parting with him, moving to a new place of residence, retirement, the beginning of an independent life for their child, and so on. As a result, despair set in again, as if a recent event had hurt a wound that had not healed since youth.

4. One of the main features of these patients is that their despair has no outlet, they experience it in themselves. They are incapable of venting pain, anger, or hostility onto others.

So, a characteristic feature of cancer patients was that, firstly, they were able to create stable emotional connections only with a very limited number of people. And any blow from this direction may seem like a disaster to them.

Secondly, these people are workaholics and, as it were, are tightly connected with some specific work. And if something happens to this work (for example, they are laid off or the time comes to retire), then they sort of cut off the umbilical cord that connected them with the world and society. They lose their source of vital nutrients. And as a result, their own life loses its meaning.

Once again, cancer requires a combination of factors. Divorce or other serious mental illness alone does not predict cancer, but it can accelerate its progression. It is known that in the course of life, almost all people receive some kind of damage that can be classified as precancerous, for example, due to carcinogens. And changes accumulate in the body, which, if a person finds himself in a situation of hopelessness and hopelessness, in the end, can "shoot" cancer.

If negative thoughts and feelings cover a person for a long time, then this necessarily weakens the immune system.… When a person is in a state of fear and stress, nerve cells produce substances that undermine the immune system. This humoral information, unfortunately, reaches cancer cells, on which it has, on the contrary, a stimulating effect.

Somewhere, there is bound to be a cell that, with a decrease in the control of the immune system associated with deep reactive depression, is ready to break out into a fire of disease. Of course, not only the psychological factor led to this. But if he did not exist, then the probability of getting sick for such a person would exist, but would be relatively insignificant.

Thus, cancer is often a kind of symptom that a person has not been able to solve some life or intrapersonal problems. And when he goes through some stressful situations, this inability to solve problems leads to the fact that he "drops his paws", that is, refuses to fight. Naturally, this leads to a feeling of helplessness and loss of hope to change anything in your life.

RELEASE FROM OFFENSES

Psychological processes that help release unpleasant feelings, express negative emotions, and forgive past grievances (real or imagined) can be an important element in disease prevention. Cancer patients often carry grievances in their souls, and other painful experiences that connect them with the past and have not found their way out. For patients to get better, they need to learn to let go of their past.

* Undercurrent resentment is not the same as anger or anger. Feelings of anger are usually a one-time, well-known, not too long-lasting emotion, while hidden resentment is a long-term process that has a constant stressful effect on a person.

* Many people have grievances in their souls that have been accumulating over the years. Often, the bitterness of childhood experiences lives in an adult, and he remembers some painful event all his life in the smallest detail. This may be a memory that he connects with the dislike of his parents, with the rejection of his other children or teachers, with some specific manifestation of parental cruelty and an endless number of other painful experiences. People with such resentment often mentally re-create the traumatic event or events, and sometimes this happens for many years, even if their abuser is no longer alive. If you also have such feelings, then first of all you will have to admit that none other than yourself is the main source of stress.

* It is one thing to believe in the need to get rid of grievances, to forgive them, and it is quite another thing to learn how to do it. Various spiritual mentors and representatives of various philosophical schools at all times have talked about the need for forgiveness. They would hardly have paid so much attention to this issue if it was easy to forgive. But on the other hand, they would not suggest it if it was not possible.

* If you can forgive yourself, you can also forgive others. If you cannot forgive others, it is most often because you find it difficult to extend forgiveness to yourself.

* Overcoming underlying negative feelings not only relieves your body of stress. At the same time, as your feelings about past events change, you have a sense of completeness of something important. When you stop being a victim of your own grievances, you gain a new sense of freedom and the ability to manage your life. By channeling the resentment energy into constructive solutions, you are taking a step towards leading the life you want to live. This in turn strengthens your body's ability to fight cancer and dramatically improves your quality of life. Oncology is typical for people who accumulate grievances and unresolved problems. People who are easily vulnerable need to learn how to get rid of negative experiences and accumulate positive ones, more often remembering pleasant events in their lives.

* According to Luula Viilma, cancer is the result of an accumulation of energy of malevolent malice. A cancer patient who recognizes ill will, admits to himself that he would have killed if he was sure that no one would find out about it, he certainly begins to recover.