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Mind-Body Self Hypnosis Cancer CD
The Cancer Personality: Its Importance in Healing
By W. Douglas Brodie, MD.
In dealing with many thousands of cancer patients over the past 28 years, it has been my observation that there are certain personality traits which are rather consistently present in the cancer-susceptible individual. These characteristics are as follows:
1. Being highly conscientious, dutiful, responsible, caring, hard-working, and usually of above average intelligence.
2. Exhibiting a strong tendency toward carrying other people's burdens and toward taking on extra obligations, often ""worrying for others.""
3. Having a deep-seated need to make others happy, tending to be ""people pleasers."" Having a great need for approval.
4. Often having a history of lack of closeness with one or both parents, sometimes, later in life, resulting in lack of closeness with spouse or others who would normally be close.
5. Harboring long-suppressed toxic emotions, such as anger, resentment and/or hostility. Typically the cancer-susceptible individual internalizes such emotions and has great difficulty expressing them.
6. Reacting adversely to stress, often becoming unable to cope adequately with such stress. Usually experiencing an especially damaging event about 2 years before the onset of detectable cancer. The patient is unable to cope with this traumatic event or series of events, which comes as a ""last straw"" on top of years of suppressed reactions to stress.
7. Showing an inability to resolve deep-seated emotional problems and conflicts, usually arising in childhood, often even being unaware of their presence.
Typical of the cancer-susceptible personality, as noted above, is the long-standing tendency to suppress ""toxic emotions,"" particularly anger. Usually starting in childhood, this individual has held in his/her hostility and other unacceptable emotions. More often than not, this feature of the affected personality has its origins in feelings of rejection by one or both parents. Whether these feelings or rejection are justified or not, it is the perception of rejection that matters, and this results in a lack of closeness with the ""rejecting"" parent or parents, followed later in life by a similar lack of closeness with spouses and others with whom close relationships would normally develop. Those at higher risk for cancer tend to develop feelings of loneliness as a result of their having been deprived of affection and acceptance earlier in life, even if this is merely their own perception. These people have a tremendous need for approval and acceptance, developing a very high sensitivity to the needs of others while suppressing their own emotional needs.
These good folks become the ""caretakers"" of the world, showing great compassion and caring for others, and going out of their way to look after the needs of others. They are very reluctant to accept help from others, fearing that it may jeopardize their role as caretakers or that they might appear to have too much self-concern. Throughout their childhood they have typically been taught ""not to be selfish,"" and they take this to heart as a major lifetime objective. All of this benevolence is highly commendable, of course, in our culture, but must be somehow modified in the case of the cancer patient. A distinction needs to be made here between the ""care-giving"" and the ""care-taking"" personality. There is nothing wrong with care-giving, of course, but the problem arises when the susceptible individual derives his/her entire worth, value and identity from his/her role as ""caretaker."" If this shift cannot be made, the patient is stuck in this role, and the susceptibility to cancer greatly increases.
As noted above, a consistent feature of those who are susceptible to cancer appears to be that they ""suffer in silence,"" and bear their burdens without complaint. Burdens of their own as well as the burdens of others weigh heavily, often subconsciously as well as consciously, upon these people because they, through a lifetime of suppression, internalize their problems, cares and conflicts. The carefree extrovert, on the other hand, seems to be far less vulnerable to cancer than the caring introvert described above.
How one reacts to stress appears to be a major factor in the development of cancer. Most cancer patients have experienced a highly stressful event, usually about 2 years prior to the onset of detectable disease. This traumatic event is often beyond the patient's control, such as the loss of a loved one, loss of a business, job, home, or some other major disaster. The typical cancer victim has lost the ability to cope with these extreme events, because his/her coping mechanism lies in his/her ability to control the environment. When this control is lost, the patient has no other way to cope.
Major stress, as we have seen, causes suppression of the immune system, and does so more overwhelmingly in the cancer-susceptible individual than in others. Thus personal tragedies and excessive levels of stress appear to combine with the underlying personality described above to bring on the immune deficiency which allows cancer to thrive.
The Cancer Personality: Inescapable Shock & Cancer
For the majority of people, coping with stress and highly stressful or traumatic events or conflicts is dealt with, with relative ease. Although those in this larger group feel the devastating effects of stress, stressful events, trauma, and conflicts, including grief and loss – stressful events are seen as part of life’s challenges, life’s ups and downs, and they are for they most part anticipated and not completely unexpected. These people are able to move on with their lives quickly afterwards.
Those susceptible to cancer, are highly vulnerable to life’s stresses and trauma, and feel unable to cope when life throws a curve-ball their way. These people are perfectionists and live in fear of conflict, stress, trauma and loss and are deeply frightened of negative events “happening” to them. And when faced with a highly stressful or traumatic event they have not anticipated, which inevitably happens during their life, react adversely and are unable to cope.
They experience Inescapable Shock and remain deeply affected by the experience. They have difficulty in expressing their inner grief, their inner pain, their inner anger or resentment, and genuinely feel there is no way out of the pain they are feeling inside. And because their mind cannot fathom what has happened, and remains in a state of disbelief or denial, these inner painful feelings are continually perpetuated, shooting up stress levels, lowering melatonin and adrenaline levels, causing a slow breakdown of the emotional reflex centre in the brain, and creating the beginning of cancer progression in the body.
When faced with a major trauma, the cancer personality feels trapped and unable to escape from the memory of the traumatic experience and the painful feelings of the experience. Stress hormone cortisol levels skyrocket and remain at high levels, directly suppressing the immune system, whose job it is to destroy cancer cells that exist in every human being. High stress levels generally means a person cannot sleep well, and cannot produce enough Melatonin during deep sleep. Melatonin is responsible for inhibiting cancer cell growth. This means cancer cells are now free to multiply. Adrenaline levels also skyrocket initially, but are then drained and depleted over time. This is especially bad news for the cancer personality.
Adrenaline is responsible for transporting sugar away from cells. And when there is too much sugar in cells of the body, the body becomes acidic. This means normal body cells cannot breathe properly because of low oxygen. Cancer cells thrive in a low oxygen state, as demonstrated by Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg. Cancer cells also thrive on sugar to keep them alive. Put simply, too much internal stress causes a depletion of adrenalin, leads to too much sugar in the body, resulting in the perfect environment for cancer cells to thrive in the body.
For the cancer personality, the news of being diagnosed with cancer and the fear and uncertainty of death represents another Inescapable Shock, creating another spike in stress hormone cortisol levels, and a further drop in melatonin and adrenalin levels. There is also a further breakdown of the emotional reflex centre in the brain that causes cells in the corresponding organ to slowly breakdown and become cancerous.
Learned helplessness is a key aspect of the cancer personality when facing a perceived inescapable shock, and is a strong developmental factor of cancer. Researcher Madelon Visintainer took three groups of rats, one receiving mild escapable shock, another group receiving mild in-escapable shock, and the third no shock at all. She then implanted each rat with cancer cells that would normally result in 50% of the rats developing a tumour. Her results were astonishing.
Within a month, 50% of the rats not shocked at all had rejected the tumour; this was the normal ratio. As for the rats that mastered shock by pressing a bar to turn it off, 70% had rejected the tumour. But only 27% of the helpless rats, the rats that had experienced in-escapable shock, rejected the tumour. This study demonstrates those who feel there is no way out of their shock / loss are less likely to be able to reject tumours forming within their body, due to high levels of stress weakening the immune system. [Seligman, 1998, p.170]
How Unresolved Trauma causes Cancer in Specific Organs
One of the most recent studies on psychosomatic cancer therapy comes from Germany. Over the past ten years, medical doctor and cancer surgeon Ryke-Geerd Hamer has examined 20,000 cancer patients with all types of cancer.
Dr. Hamer wondered why cancer never seems to systematically spread directly from one organ to the surrounding tissue. For example, he never found cancer of the cervix AND cancer of the uterus in the same woman. He also noticed that all his cancer patients seemed to have something in common: there had been some kind of psycho emotional conflict prior to the onset of their disease - usually a few years before - a conflict that had never been fully resolved.
X-rays taken of the brain by Dr. Hamer showed in all cases a ‘dark shadow’ somewhere in the brain. These dark spots would be in exactly the same place in the brain for the same types of cancer. There was also a 100% correlation between the dark spot in the brain, the location of the cancer in the body and the specific type of unresolved conflict. On the basis of these findings, Dr. Hamer suggests that when we are in a stressful conflict that is not resolved, the emotional reflex center in the brain which corresponds to the experienced emotion (e.g : anger, frustration, grief) will slowly break down. Each of these emotion centers are connected to a specific organ. When a center breaks down, it will start sending wrong information to the organ it controls, resulting in the formation of deformed cells in the tissues: cancer cells. He also suggests that metastasis is not the SAME cancer spreading. It is the result of new conflicts that may well be brought on by the very stress of having cancer or of invasive and painful or nauseating therapies.
Dr. Hamer started including psychotherapy as an important part of the healing process and found that when the specific conflict was resolved, the cancer immediately stopped growing at a cellular level. The dark spot in the brain started to disappear. X-rays of the brain now showed a healing edema around the damaged emotional center as the brain tissue began to repair the afflicted point. There was once again normal communication between brain and body. A similar healing edema could also be seen around the now inactive cancer tissue. Eventually, the cancer would become encapsulated, discharged or dealt with by the natural action of the body. Diseased tissue would disappear and normal tissue would then again appear.
According to Dr Hamer the real cause of cancer and other diseases is an unexpected traumatic shock for which we are emotionally unprepared. The following list shows some of the relationships between conflict emotions and target organs.
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ORGAN |
UNRESOLVED TRAUMA |
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Adrenal Cortex |
Wrong Direction. Gone Astray |
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Bladder |
Ugly Conflict. Dirty Tricks |
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Bone |
Lack of Self Worth. Inferiority Feeling |
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Breast Milk Gland |
Involving Care or Disharmony |
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Breast Milk Duct |
Separation Conflict |
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Breast [Left] |
Conflict Concerning Child, Home, Mother |
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Breast [Right] |
Conflict with Partner or Others |
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Bronchioles |
Territorial Conflict |
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Cervix |
Severe Frustration |
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Colon |
Ugly Indigestible Conflict |
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Esophagus |
Cannot Have It or Swallow It |
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Gall Bladder |
Rivalry Conflict |
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Heart |
Perpetual Conflict |
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Intestines |
Indigestible Chunk of Anger |
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Kidney |
Not Wanting to Live. Water or Fluid Conflict |
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Larynx |
Conflict of Fear and Fright |
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Liver |
Fear of Starvation |
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Lung |
Fear of Dying or Suffocation, including Fear for Someone Else |
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Lymph Glands |
Loss of Self -Worth associated with the Location |
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Melanoma |
Feeling Dirty, Soiled, Defiled |
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Middle Ear |
Not being able to get some Vital Information |
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Mouth |
Cannot Chew It or Hold It |
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Pancreas |
Anxiety-Anger Conflict with Family Members. Inheritence |
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Prostate |
Ugly Conflict with Sexual Connections or Connotations |
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Rectum |
Fear of Being Useless |
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Skin |
Loss of Integrity |
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Spleen |
Shock of Being Physically or Emotionally Wounded |
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Stomach |
Indigestible Anger. Swallowed too much |
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Testes and Ovaries |
Loss Conflict |
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Thyroid |
Feeling Powerless |
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Uterus |
Sexual Conflict |
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THE COMMON REACTION FOR UNRESOLVED TRAUMA IN THOSE WHO PRESENT WITH CANCER IS REPRESSED ANGER, HATE, RESENTMENT AND/OR GRIEF. |
The Cancer Chain of Events
Cancer occurs at the cellular level. And there are a number of factors that create stress on the body’s cells, causing them to become (1) depleted of adrenaline, (2) high in sugar and (3) low in oxygen, where they are more prone to mutate and become cancerous. The higher the sugar content of the cell caused by a depletion of adrenaline, and the lower the oxygen content, the greater the likelihood of normal cells mutating and becoming cancerous.
There are a number of factors that contribute to a normal cell becoming depleted of adrenaline, high in sugar and low in oxygen. Physiological stresses include (and are not limited to): Poor nutrition, Chemicals, Toxins, EMF Radiation, Parasites, Liver / Colon / Kidney disease, Lack of Exercise, etc. Psychological stresses include (and are not limited to): Inescapable Shock, Repressed Feelings, Depression, Isolation, Poor Sleep, Emotional Trauma, External Conflict, etc.
In the vast majority of those with cancer, there exists both a combination of psychological as well as physiological stresses that have contributed to the body’s cells becoming depleted of adrenaline, high in sugar and low in oxygen, causing them to mutate and become cancerous.
These physiological and psychological stresses (in particular) cause a dramatic increase in base-line stress hormone norepinephrine and epinephine levels, that stimulate tumor cells to produce three (3) compounds: MMP-2 and MMP-9 (both martix metalloproteinases) and the growth compound VEGF (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor). Tumor cells make receptors for these stress hormones on their surface, to stimulate these three compounds.
MMP-2 and MMP-9 breakdown the scaffolding of tumor cell walls making it easier for them to travel to other parts of the body, a process known as metastasis. VEGF causes blood vessels to grow in new tumors cells, so that they can grow and spread more rapidly.
Physiological and psychological stresses also cause a dramatic increase in base-line stress hormone cortisol levels, directly supressing immune system functioning, and allowing for newly created cancer cells to keep on multiplying unopposed. The actual cancer diagnosis, and subsequent news of further metastasis, become further "inescapable shocks" for the cancer patient in the Cancer Chain of Events.
Use the Mind-Body Self Hypnosis Cancer CD to lower and remove psychological stress at the cellular level.
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THE CANCER CHAIN OF EVENTS
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PHASE 1
INESCAPABLE SHOCK [1-3 YEARS PRIOR TO CANCER DIAGNOSIS]
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Leads to poor diet and exercise
causing 1) body cells to become acidic & low in oxygen, and 2) a build up of toxins in the body |
Leads to repressed feelings of anger, hate, resentment, and/or grief resulting in a heightened state of internal stress |
Leads to depression & poor sleep resulting in low melatonin levels. (Melatonin inhibits
cancer cell growth) |
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PHASE 2
PROLONGED STRESS ON THE BODY & IMMUNE SYSTEM
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Leads to depleted
adrenaline levels in the body |
Leads to high stress
hormone cortisol levels |
Leads to high stress hormone nor-epinephrine levels |
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Leads to increased insulin
sugar levels in cells (as there is no adrenaline to remove it) |
High stress hormone cortisol levels suppress the
immune system |
Stimulates tumor cell growth compounds MMP-2/9, VEGF.
Restricts oxygen to cells |
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Leads to fermentation of
excess sugar in body cells causing rapid cell division |
CANCER
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Leads to tumor cell growth and
low oxygen levels in cells causing cell mutation |
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PHASE 3
NEWS OF CANCER RESULTS IN FURTHER INESCAPABLE SHOCK CAUSING CANCER - OVERTIME - TO APPEAR IN SECONDARY AREAS [LUNGS, LIVER, BONES]
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Puna Wai Ora Mind-Body Cancer Clinic |
Stress Hormone 'Norepinephrine' Stimulates Tumor Cell Growth
New research shows that the stress hormones – Norepineprhine and Epinephrine – produced during periods of stress, increases the growth rate of cancer, including Ovarian Cancer and a particularly nasty kind of cancer, Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC).
The studies, conducted by the Ohio State University and The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, showed that an increase in the stress hormones norepinephrine and epinephine, can stimulate tumor cells to produce three compounds.
These compounds can break down the tissue around the tumor cells and allow the cells to more easily move into the bloodstream. From there, they can travel to another location in the body to form additional tumors, a process called metastasis.
Two of these compounds, both matrix metalloproteinases -- MMP-2 and MMP-9 -- play a role in breaking down the scaffolding that cells attach to in order to maintain their shape. The third compound, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), is important in the growth of new blood vessels into tumor cells.
“MMP-2 and MMP-9 contribute to the aggressiveness of these tumors,” Yang said, of the University of Ohio. “It isn't clear exactly how they are operating but they may work with VEGF to facilitateblood vessel growth in new tumors so that they can grow.”
When mice with ovarian cancer are stressed, their tumors grow and spread more quickly, but that effect can be blocked using a medication commonly prescribed for heart disease, according to a preclinical study by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The finding, published in the journal Nature Medicine, provides the first measurable link between psychological stress and the biological processes that make ovarian tumors grow and spread. Specifically, the researchers showed that stress hormones bind to receptors directly on tumor cells and, in turn, stimulate new blood vessel growth and other factors that lead to faster and more aggressive tumors.
"This study provides a new understanding of how chronic stress and stress factors drive tumor growth," says Anil Sood, M.D., associate professor of gynecologic oncology and cancer biology and director of ovarian cancer research.
In fact, when the researchers blocked the stress hormone receptors in their experimental system using a heart disease drug called propranolol, also known as a "beta blocker," they were able to stop the negative effects of stress on tumor growth.
In their experiments, the researchers confined the mice in a small space for zero, two or six hours during the day. The confinement caused the mice to produce the same stress hormones as humans produce when they are under stress.
Sood and his colleagues found that, surprisingly, cancer cells makereceptors for these hormones on their surface and that when these receptors are activated they set in motion a chain of events that leads to formation of new blood vessels that feed tumors, a process called angiogenesis. New blood vessel formation is known to allow tumors to grow and spread more rapidly.
After three weeks, the researchers measured the number and size of tumors in the mice. The number of tumors was 2.5 times greater in the mice that had been in the 2-hour stress group and 3.6 times greater in the 6-hour stress group compared to the mice with no stress. In addition, tumor growth was confined in the no-stress mice, but had spread to the liver or spleen in half of the stressed mice.
In additional experiments, the researchers gave the stressed mice propranolol, which blocked the effect of stress hormones. The medication completely neutralized the effect of stress on tumor growth," says Sood.
CAUTION: Beta-Blockers can have serious side effects, especially when taken on a regular basis. The following list comprises a number of ways to naturally lower blood pressure and reduce stress levels at the cellular level, to help neutralize the effects of norepinephrine and epinephrine stress on tumor growth.
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