What Is "cancer Psychosomatics"? If Not Offense, Then What Is The Problem Of Psycho-oncology?

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

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In search of the psychological "causes" of cancer, it is impossible to do with simple theses and metaphors. The article I wrote turned out to be very long, so I divided it into two parts. The first, as it were, an overview, speaks about the connection between our psyche and the development of oncology. The second one dwells more specifically on the psychological types of people whom we most often meet in work with serious illnesses.

Conventionally, we can distinguish several mechanisms affecting the triggering of the mechanism of "self-destruction" - depression (primary and secondary), neurosis and trauma, situational psychosomatics (acute conflict, stress) and true (associated with our psychotype).

Stressful events

At one time, in the main fundamental works on psycho-oncology, doctors paid special attention to the so-called "Holmes-Rage stress scale". The point was that in the course of a psychological analysis of the life history of patients, it was found that the majority of cancer patients experienced some kind of severe mental shock some time before the development of the disease. At the same time, relying on the doctrine of good and bad stress (eustress and distress according to G. Selye), this checklist included not only objectively negative events such as the death of a loved one, divorce, moving, etc., but also events at first glance causing positive emotions - wedding, childbirth, reconciliation of spouses, etc. Since we can assess the situation as good or bad only subjectively, while for the body stress (a strong change in stimulus) always remains stress, which activates the adaptation system with accompanying hormonal "explosions". Based on the results of this questionnaire, we could predict the likelihood of developing somatic diseases (the more stress = the higher the score = the more chances of getting sick (how cortisol suppresses the immune system is described a lot on the Internet)).

The psychosomatic model goes a little further, since the same event hurts people in different ways. Psychotherapists began to focus not so much on the number of points scored as on a qualitative assessment of traumatic situations, not excluding the well-known mechanisms of psychological defense (repression, rationalization … in itself several at once).

Why do we associate stress factor with cancer? As mentioned earlier, information about the "self-destruction" of an organism is genetically embedded in us. When various stresses, conflicts, problems and seemingly minor troubles begin to prevail in a person's life, which do not find discharge, quick resolution and compensation, sooner or later a person begins to feel burdened by this situation psychologically, and physically his body constantly produces a stress hormone that significantly affects on immunity. But why cancer, and not cardiovascular disease, for example? Departing from the topic, in fact, according to statistics, people are much more likely to die from heart attacks and strokes, however.

One of the main mistakes that is most often made in working with psychosomatics is that psychosomatics is viewed as a one-sided process - a psychological problem that leads to illness. In fact, in psychosomatics, the mental and physiological constantly interact and influence each other. We live in a real physical body, in which real, sometimes independent of us, physical laws work. And the first thing that is important to understand is that in order for the disease to develop as it is, the puzzle must be assembled from several factors.

When we take a medical history and see in it a genetic predisposition to cancer + when we note the consumption of large quantities of food containing so-called carcinogens + when we note that a person lives in a certain ecologically unfavorable zone or radiation + when we observe other elements self-destructive behavior (alcohol, smoking, self-medication, exercise regime (violence) over one's body) and + when we note psychological problems, only then can we say that the risk is really high.

In this case, we consider the psychological factor as a permissive … Indeed, in fact, in the body of each of us there are constantly those same immature, continuously dividing cells. But the principle of homeostasis is also designed to prevent an increase in their number, every second our body works to maintain a healthy state (like the OS in your computer, the inside of which you have not seen, you do not know how it works, but it working). And at some point, the program crashes and starts to pass these cells, the immune system stops considering them as abnormal, dangerous … Why? After all, even if the information is genetically embedded, must something happen to reveal it? This usually happens under the influence of various kinds of events, which can be conditionally designated as an internal feeling that life is over and has no meaning.

Depression

Often, cancer patients compare their lives with the image of Baron Munchausen, who pulls himself out of the swamp by the pigtail. In addition to the fact that their attempts seem worthless to them, they say that they are simply tired of the fact that they constantly have to pull themselves. Previously, depression was associated only with a response to the disease itself and treatment. However, patient histories have shown that often the disease can occur in the background of the depression itself. How secondary, when a psychological disorder appears against the background of some kind of disease (for example, one woman could not recover from a stroke for a long time, and after half a year she was diagnosed with cancer. She observed a manifestation with a mammologist for many years and did not raise any questions. Another woman worked as an aerobics trainer and received a leg injury, the longer the treatment took and the more obvious it became that the leg would not recover, the more her health worsened and after a while she was also diagnosed RMZH). So in the background primary depression, when in the history of patients with cancer we see that they previously received treatment for depression. Moreover, experimental studies have shown that people suffering from depression have increased blood levels of a protein that is involved in the formation of cancer cells and the spread of metastases in the body.

At the same time, one of the versions according to which oncology is classified as a so-called psychosomatosis is based precisely on the fact that often psychosomatic diseases are nothing more than a manifestation of somatized (hidden, masked) depression. Then, outwardly, a person leads an active lifestyle, but in the depths of his soul he experiences disappointment with himself and with life, hopelessness and meaninglessness. There is also a connection with theories that represent oncology, as sublimated form of socially acceptable suicide (if, according to statistics, about 70% of patients with endogenous depression express the idea of suicide, and about 15% go to active actions, then such a version is quite likely - not seeing the meaning in life, but fearing the suicide of the real, subconsciously a person gives a "command" to his body on "self-liquidation").

Neurosis and psychological trauma

Another option that we see in practice, although not in all patients, but it is also important, we correlate with psychological trauma. I combine this with neurosis, because more often the trauma that we remember but block on the emotional level manifests itself in organ neuroses and here we will rather work not with oncology, but with carcinophobia. Repressed trauma is a big problem. It turns out that a person has a traumatic experience (mainly of various kinds of violence, including moral), suppressed, hidden and repressed, but suddenly some situation occurs that actualizes him, some associations awaken the memory of the event. In fact, the trauma was so strong that the psyche did not find any other mechanism but to displace it, but now that the person has matured, he has a kind of second attempt. He will not be able to forget the situation back, and if over the past time from the moment of injury he has developed a psychological resource, this memory is more likely to sublimate into some kind of organ nerve (an unconscious attempt to control). If there is no mechanism to work through this trauma, we again come to the conclusion that life will never be the same, he will never be able to forget it and be reconciled, which means that such a life is doomed to "lifelong suffering." Does it make sense?

At the same time, in the psychotherapy of such patients, it is important to pay attention to the destructive link "resentment-forgiveness". At first glance, everything seems logical - the person remembered something "terrible", it immediately became clear to everyone that the root of the trouble is in the childhood trauma of violence, and in order to recover from cancer, the tyrant must be urgently forgiven and there will be happiness. But there will be no happiness. Because forgiveness involves sharing responsibility (I took offense - I forgave). While the provocation of feelings of guilt can only aggravate the condition (if I am guilty, it means I deserve it). Therefore, it is important to do the opposite, on the removal of guilt from the patient and the processing of the traumatic experience (focusing on the state of health).

Situational psychosomatics

Often there are cases when the disease occurs as if by accident, spontaneously, without any long-term suffering and prerequisites. We associate this with the so-called situational psychosomatics, when a strong conflict occurs in a person's life, a frustrating situation, shock, which seem to knock him out of balance. Some patients may even note that at this moment they thought that "life is over" (car accident, assault) or that "with such a course of affairs everything was in vain and does not make sense", "it is better to die than to endure this shame", "there is no one else to believe and I will not be able to pull it out alone," etc. Soon, the wave of indignation passes, the person finds a tool to solve the problem, but the trigger has already been released. Then, in the process of psychotherapy, he does not see any connection between the conflict and the disease, because he considers that once the situation is resolved, then there is no problem. Such cases are more likely to have a favorable outcome and a minimal risk of recurrence. One can suspect for a long time that the client is hiding something, because it cannot be that a person is doing well and suddenly, oncology. In fact, it can.

Recently, more and more we can come across information that oncology is considered a chronic disease. In addition to situational psychosomatics, for most cases this is true, since the factors contributing to the development of the disease are always nearby (both psychological and physical). The body already knows the mechanism and schemes of how to sublimate the intrapersonal conflict, where the necessary mechanisms of "self-destruction" are located, and so on. Therefore, as a prevention of relapse, it is important for us to understand where our weaknesses are and periodically actively strengthen them.

True psychosomatics

It does not give rest to everyone, because this is exactly the factor that we can tie to the personality traits of the patient and his appearance. I described these types in more detail in another article. However, here I will note that since we correlate true psychosomatics with constitutional features (what is inherent in us by nature and does not change), more often this suggests that oncology has a connection with some feelings, character traits, organs and so on.. After all, we really note that, for example, people with asthenic physique often have cancer of the skin, lungs, etc., but this is connected not so much with the problems of a person as with his personality. By the way, speaking about what kind of decoding or meaning in psychosomatics this or that organ has, I can immediately answer that more often no). In the hospital, people with the same diagnosis have completely different characters and psychological problems, any oncologist will confirm this to you.

"Choosing a tumor location"more related to: with constitutionally weak body (where it is thin, there it breaks - sometimes we talk about the risk of "breast cancer" of a woman whose mother had a tumor, but a woman can inherit her father's constitution and our prognosis will not come true, and vice versa); with the above carcinogenic factors (if a person smokes, then the likelihood of damage to the throat and lungs is higher; if he abuses medicines and unhealthy food - the stomach; the environment, the sun / solarium - the skin, but this is not the law and is considered with other components); with hormonal imbalance, in particular, with the peculiarities of the development of neuromidators of a particular person at a particular moment in time (each person needs a different amount of the hormone in order to manifest this or that emotion and, by and large, although it depends on the constitution, it is also connected with what happens in life person) and even with age (each organ has its own history of development - renewal and destruction, therefore, in different periods, different cells can divide more intensively) or direct organ injury (often patients indicate that before the development of the tumor, this area was traumatized (chilled, hit, smashed, broken), but we are talking about the injury not as a cause of oncology, but as a localization, do not be confused).

At the same time, character traits are essentially dictated precisely by the constitutional type of nervous activity (see temperature). And when we talk about the characterological similarities of patients with a particular diagnosis, we describe exactly the very portraits of personality that we will talk about in the next article.

Continued