So you’ve tried the conventional methods to treat cancer. You’ve gone for endless sessions of chemotherapy, made return trips to the treatment rooms more often than you’d like and suffered from nasty side effects. Surely there must be other options?Few people realize that psychology can play an important role in cancer treatment. There has been evidence that a positive psychological approach reduces emotional distress, enhances communication between patients, family members and medical staff, reduces side effects of treatment and improves patients’ quality of life.
There’s the case of a Kip Little who was diagnosed with cancer in 1986. In 1990, she was given 3 months to live. Kip worked with a psychologist at the Ontario Cancer Institute and began the transformation of a lifetime. Together with fellow cancer patients, they met weekly to discuss their feelings, learned meditation and other relaxation techniques and explored ways of coping with grief, depression, pain and fear.
Most people don’t associate psychology with cancer treatment. However they should as Kip’s story illustrates, psychology can help extend patient’s lives beyond what conventional medicine can hope to achieve.
A paper regarding the effects of psychology was published in 1989 by psychiatrist David Spiegel. Dr Spiegel discovered the people who worked the hardest at transforming themselves psychologically lived at least 3 times longer than predicted. The least active patients died not far from the doctor’s stipulated date.
Perhaps Dr Sandra Haber, a psychologist from New York, said it best when she said "Patients get caught up in the physical aspects of their illness. That's understandable. But in dwelling on the medical possibilities and diagnostic procedures, patients tend to minimize the role of their feelings and the role that psychology can play."
So what are some things that can be done while battling cancer? Examples include learning how to express or manage emotions better, achieving inner tranquillity, gaining self-confidence and hopeful attitudes. Generally people who swear by these methods are not negative about conventional medical therapies, but they do attach great importance to psychological factors in managing their conditions.
Learning to relax/meditate might not cure cancer outright but it will definitely help to restore some feeling of control over cancer’s traumatic emotional experience, and give patients a way of achieving calmness and peace of mind. Now that’s not too bad right?
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