The Healer Within

Emotional healing key to cancer patient recovery

Cancer Report represents 30 years of inquiry into a century of findings among hundreds of physicians, psychologists and other clinicians and counselors who are successfully guiding patients through holistic cancer treatment. Contributors to the user-friendly report represent experience with more than 70,000 cancer cases. All point to "the healer within" and the primary role a patient plays in his or her own recovery.

Pattern of Emotional Cures early as 1909, British physician Sir William Osler, known as the "Father of Modern Medicine," observed that: "The care of tuberculosis depends more on what the patient has in his head than what he has in his chest."  Ten years later Dr. Tohru Ishigami of Japan concurred in a report which concluded that the key to progression of this disease lay in the "emotional life of the patient." Causal factors cited included business failures, family discord, jealousy, nervousness or the death of a loved one.

Recently, cancer surgeon Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer of Germany has consistently demonstrated that when an emotional conflict associated with a certain cancer is resolved, the cancer immediately stops growing at a cellular level…and the diseased tissue comes to be replaced by normal tissue.
 Researchers worldwide agree that negative emotions like worry, anxiety, anger and resentment are common catalysts. "Often detrimental emotions are so suppressed that we’re not even aware that we’re harboring them," says Chatfield, co-author of Cancer Report. "But when we honestly identify what it is that’s eating us and let it go, we cut off the fuel that’s been feeding the cancer."

Integrative physician W. Douglas Brodie, M.D., has treated more than 10,000 cancer patients. Susan Silberstein, Ph.D., founder of The Center for Advancement in Cancer Education, has counseled more than 25,000 cancer patients. Both concur with Osler, that "It is more important to know what kind of patient has the disease than to know what kind of disease the patient has."

Silberstein, who was instrumental in collaborating on Cancer Report, summarizes traits common to survivors in some detail. In a nutshell, behaviors of patients who recover despite the odds include:

• Accepting the diagnosis, but rejecting the prognosis.
• Initiating and collaborating in treatment decisions.
• Seeing opportunity for introspection, learning and personal growth.
• Transforming personal relationships.
• Shifting patterns of diet, exercise, job and living arrangements.
• Developing the ability to express emotions, especially negative feelings.
• Understanding one’s purpose and place in the spiritual universe.

"If you tell patients they have a ‘responsibility’ for creating their illness or wellness, it implies some blame and leads to guilt," says Silberstein. "But, if you spell it ‘Response–Ability,’ you create an awareness that leads to power." Effective treatment is never about guilt and blame. It’s always about empowerment.

"Those most willing to look at their personal issues, about what’s missing in their lives, about why they think they’re sick, will most likely do best in overcoming their illness," observes Silberstein.

That’s because an unresolved emotional conflict or trauma may lie at the root of the disease. "Brodie and Silberstein and others agree that when a patient thinks back to what was going on in his or her life 12 to 18 months before the diagnosis, they inevitably put their finger right on it," says Voell. The challenge then, is to see the links between some harmful unconscious or conscious emotional state and its physical manifestation. Thus, muses Louise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life, "Even the well can benefit from this information."

The most extensive testimonial of healing in Cancer Report is a first-hand account of complete recovery from terminal lung cancer achieved within a matter of days. Twenty years ago Greg Anderson was given just one month to live. Today he’s still actively writing about how he achieved complete health through practicing the universal Law of Forgiveness.
 Forgiveness, he says, provides an effective solvent to living in a state of "resentment, remorse or recrimination, which does more to stand in the way of our wellness than virtually any other dynamic." This includes self-recrimination and judgment. "Survivors heal the whole person," says Anderson. "The change comes first; survivorship follows."
 In Silberstein’s experience, George, a medical doctor suffering from colon cancer that had metastasized to his lungs, fully recovered when he left his hospital presidency, a career in which he felt constantly angry about challenges handed him by the healthcare industry, and turned to full-time gardening, a pursuit that makes him feel totally alive. He now is living a vastly different, happier life.

Ellen probably contracted breast cancer because she felt trapped by her controlling abusive husband. "When I get better, I’ll leave," she told Silberstein, who corrected her with, "No, that’s how you get well." Ellen eventually left her marriage, built a new life and has recovered her health.

Those who have recovered from cancer in the face of overwhelming odds nearly universally attest that they have experienced some kind of paradigm shift in both attitude and lifestyle and that their quality of life subsequently improves. Thus life becomes infinitely more worth living, for whatever time they have.

As Dr. Lawrence LeShan, considered "The Father of Mind-Body Therapy," and author of Cancer as a Turning Point observes, "Getting cancer can become the beginning of living." His terminal cancer patients have achieved a 50 percent remission rate by learning to live their dreams. Many live for decades longer than expected.

"The search for one’s own being, the discovery of the life one needs to live can be one of the strongest weapons against disease," says LeShan.

Thus all these sources agree that permanent physical healing can only happen as healing takes place on multiple levels—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. "Remember," says Silberstein, "that cure relates solely to the removal of symptoms. Healing relates to how you live your life."

Cancer Report endorsements include Louise Hay, Dr. Christiane Northrup and Dr. Bernie Siegel. For more information visit cancer-report.com, or call 239-530-1376.