As your concentration improves, you can do imaging
meditation anywhere, even on a subway . Often the environmental noises
can be woven into the imagery or hypnotic suggestion and help deepen the
trance. The only requirement for ef fective visualization is development of
your imagination. Seek specific help from a trained therapist if you have
difficulty . We are not all visual and techniques for successful imagery or
hypnosis vary . This is discussed further in the appendix. The power of a vivid imagination struck me most clearly in the case of
Garrett, a young child who had a brain tumor . It was inoperable, and
following radiation treatments he still had his brain tumor . His doctors said
there were no further tests or treatments that could help. His parents took
him to the Biofeedback and Psychophysiology Center at the Menninger
Clinic, where one of the staf f taught him some self-regulation techniques
—“how to control his body with his mind.” The staf f member had an
imagery tape but he thought it was too boring for kids and wanted to make a
tape that kids would like. Garrett decided he liked the idea of rocket ships,
as in a video game, flying around in his head, shooting at the tumor . He
imagined the cancer as “a big, round, dumb-looking thing” and blasted it
regularly . One night months later he told his father , “I can’ t find my tumor
anymore.” Though his father sat with him to help him concentrate, all he
could see in his imagery was normal brain where his tumor used to be. Garrett wanted another CA T scan, but since the tumor was considered
incurable, there seemed no reason to put him through the experience orexpense. However after he fell down the stairs, a CA T scan was ordered to
check for a skull fracture, and the tumor was shown to be entirely gone. If we could just tell everybody , “Get out those rocket ships,” the
problem would be easy . Unfortunately , this technique doesn’ t always work. We just don’ t know enough about the process and how to individualize it
and create change at an unconscious level of the mind. From years of experience in using the visualization technique we do
know that the image must be chosen by the individual. It must be an image
that that person can see in the mind’ s eye as clearly as something seen by
the physical eyes. It must be an image with which the patient feels
completely comfortable. I believe one of the shortcomings of the
Simontons’  book is the absence of the spiritual aspects of healing. Since
their initial patients were an aggressive group, they assumed that everyone
would be comfortable attacking and killing cancer . A majority of people are
profoundly disturbed by any picture of themselves killing anything, even an
invading disease or ganism. The prevailing medical imagery of warfare is
terribly upsetting to such people, even if they aren’ t conscious of it. Medical
jargon words like assault, insult, blast, poison , and kill cause conscious and
unconscious rejection by the patient. One ECaP  patient, for example, a
young man named Ian, listened to his oncologist tell him his treatment
would kill his leukemia. Ian got up and left. On the way out, he said, “I’m a
Quaker , a conscientious objector , and I don’ t kill anything .”
Ian entered individual and group psychotherapy , worked on developing
a clear conscience, took twenty grams of vitamin C every day , meditated,
and in general chose what was right for him. He visualized the appropriate
immune-system cells gently carrying the cancerous cells away and instead
of killing them flushing them out of the body . His disease slowly but
steadily improved for four years. Then one winter he fell on the ice, hit his
head, and suf fered a concussion. He was told to lie down for a month. He
used that month almost entirely for meditation and visualization. When he
went for his regular checkup, his doctor told him, “This is the best blood
count you’ve ever had.” His wife said, “If we could just hit him in the head
once a month, he’d probably get well.”
As far as cancer is concerned, Ian’ s attitude is actually more realistic
than the war model, because malignant cells are the body’ s own cells gone
astray . In a sense, then, a direct attack is an attack on oneself. Moreover ,
most people feel comfortable about killing only out of love, in defense ofloved ones, friends, family , or children. Psychological studies show that
only about 15 percent of soldiers feel comfortable killing the enemy—
unless they develop love for their comrades and think in terms of defending
their loved ones. But cancer patients often have had lifelong dif ficulty in loving
themselves enough to feel the same way about self-defense. Thus some
patients do well seeing their white blood cells as sharks or polar bears, but
many do not. Some of the most successful kinds of visualization in ECaP
have been images of tumors as food, being eaten by white cells disguised as
Pac-Men or some such benevolent consumer . Just as healers in primitive
tribes tell people to utilize power animals, I suggest that patients use similar
animated symbols. One child saw his cancer as cat food and immune cells
as white pussycats. Another patient visualized birds and birdseed. One lady
who had oat-cell cancer pictured mares and does eating her oats. Seeing the
cancer as being eaten can mean “This tumor will nourish me and help me
get well.” This kind of picture is truer to the real nature of the white blood
cells and also of fers a framework for using the disease as psychological
food for one’ s own growth. Another comfortable image is seeing the disease
as a delinquent, or misbehaving child or body part. Through treatment and
discipline the abnormal part or disease is returned to normal, mature
function. For guided visualization techniques, see the Appendix. OceanofPDF .com7
You cannot teach a man anything. Y ou can only help him to find it within
himself . —G ALILEO
OceanofPDF .comImages in Disease and Healing
I began working with imagery and cancer using the approach developed by
the Simontons and specifically outlined by their co-workers Jeanne
Achterber g and Frank Lawlis in Imagery of Cancer  (now expanded and
titled Imagery of Disease ). Using these techniques, I, too, found consistent
differences between the images of patients who would do well compared
with those who would do poorly . The dif ferences showed up in such
pictorial elements as the bulk of the cancer , the aggressiveness of white
blood cells, and the ways in which treatment was symbolized. I had used this method for a year in a rather mechanical way to try to
direct patients toward healing. Then, in the fall of 1979, I participated in a
Life-Death Transition workshop run by Elisabeth Kübler -Ross. The
drawings I made as part of that workshop (see example in insert following
page 1 16) helped me reach a deeper understanding of the powerful
relationship between one’ s unconscious and one’ s emotional life. These techniques for using drawings to explore the unconscious have
been developed over many decades by Carl Jung’ s student Susan Bach, and
by Gregg Furth and others. I learned them from Dr . Kübler -Ross, and as I
applied them in my practice, I saw that there were patterns of color
symbolism and that time sequences of past, present, and future were often
revealed. However , I saw that the symbol associations were often as
complex and revealing as dreams. Back in 1933, Jung interpreted the following dream sub mitted to him by
a doctor who provided no other information about the patient:
 
Someone beside me kept asking me something about oiling some
machinery . Milk was suggested as the best lubricant. Apparently I thought
that oozy slime was preferable. Then, a pond was drained and amid the
slime there were two extinct animals. One was a minute mastodon. I for got
what the other one was. Jung correctly diagnosed a damming-up of cerebrospinal fluid probably
due to a tumor . His interpretation was based on the facts that the Latin word
for phlegm, one kind of bodily “slime,” is pituita , and that “mastodon”
derives from two Greek words meaning “breast” and “teeth.” He deducedthat the mastodon image referred to the mammillary bodies, breast-shaped
structures lying at the bottom of the third ventricle, a “pond” of
cerebrospinal fluid at the base of the brain. The details of Jung’ s interpretation are brilliantly recaptured by UCLA
research psychologist Russell Lockhart in his article “Cancer in Myth and
Dream.” When asked how he had arrived at the correct conclusion, Jung
himself only replied:
 
…why I must take that dream as an or ganic symptom would start such an
argument that you would accuse me of the most terrible
obscurantism….When I speak of archetypal patterns those of you who are
aware of these things understand, but if you are not you think, “This fellow
is absolutely crazy because he talks of mastodons and their dif ference from
snakes and horses.” I should have to give you a course of about four
semesters about symbology first so that you could appreciate what I said. As Lockhart concluded, “Bodily or gans and processes have the capacity
to stimulate the production of psychic images, meaningfully related to the
type of physical disturbance and its location.” This probably comes about
by means of electrical and/or chemical messages from the diseased part of
the body to the brain, which are interpreted by the mind as images. Just as a
salamander cannot grow a new limb if the nerves to it have been cut, so we
cannot receive these messages if the nervous system is damaged or if our
minds are closed to conscious communication with psyche and soma. As you can see, a great deal of knowledge about language and
mythology is often necessary to interpret dreams correctly . Like Jung, I
believe that the mind has available to it the experience of all previous life. This is why people sometimes dream in languages consciously unknown to
them, or in a universal language of symbols whose meanings they do not
know when awake. Drawings are easier to interpret, because the symbolism
is generally simpler , more closely related to everyday life, and can be
directed to a specific theme. I ask my patients to draw themselves, their treatment, their disease, and
their white cells eliminating the disease. To elicit undirected material from
the unconscious, I ask each patient for at least one additional drawing of a
scene of his or her own choosing. Depending on what areas of conflictexist, I may also ask them to draw themselves at work, at home with their
family , in the operating room, and so on. One of the conflicts I most often see concerns the patient’ s attitude
toward treatment. On a conscious or intellectual level the patient is often
saying, “This treatment is good for me,” yet unconsciously feeling, “This is
poison.” In such a case, there is only one way out: if the patient reacts as
though poisoned, treatment must be stopped. However , once a drawing
reveals a patient’ s resistance to treatment, that attitude can be changed. It
can be made conscious and dealt with. It requires the visualization of
successful therapy , a reprogramming at an unconscious level. I discuss the drawings with each patient, sometimes for hours, before
the first ECaP  session or as part of the consultation before sur gery. The
drawings are a wonderful way to get people to open up and talk about
things they would otherwise conceal. After all, they have made the picture,
and the conflicts and attitudes it represents are now there on paper for both
of us to see. Furthermore, it doesn’ t matter how many of my lectures a
patient has attended, or how much he or she knows about the picture-
drawing technique. The unconscious always knows more symbols and finds
new ways of revealing something that consciousness has concealed. Susan Bach has worked with this approach for over thirty years, much
of that time in children’ s hospitals where the use of drawings was
encouraged. She has found specific illnesses reflected in a typical, recurrent
way. She writes:
 
We may comprehend that the human being can and does convey ,
through these wordless communications and in his own idiom, both his
somatic and his psychological condition. Somatically , such pictures may
point to events in the past relevant to anamnesis [recall], early diagnosis,
and prognosis. Psychologically , we may see what goes on and has been
going on deep in the mind—for instance, past traumas—and how the
drawing can help him to express his hopes, fear , and forebodings. Moreover , these pictures can build a bridge between doctor and patient, the
family , and the surrounding world. Indeed, their meaning and what it
implies could guide the healing profession to assist especially the critically
ill patient in living as near to his essential being as possible, whether in
recovery or before his life’ s circle closes.Finally , we may ask how it could be that spontaneous pictures reflect, as
dreams do, the total situation of the human person. I have come to see, in
decades of clinical work, that through the imagery of spontaneous pictures
and of dreams something shines through, which I have called “inner
knowingness.” Thus a new dimension may be opening before us. In her own way , psychologist Joan Kellogg has shown that patient
drawings of mandalas, an ancient Indian type of circular symbolic image
representing wholeness or one’ s whole life, can reveal much about the
unconscious life of the mind. The person fills in a circular outline with
colored geometric designs or pictures, which are then interpreted in a
dialogue with the healer or therapist. For examples of drawings by patients, see the insert following page 1 16. They have been chosen to illustrate some of the things this technique can
reveal. I have made no attempt to give a complete interpretation of each
picture. Nor have I tried to teach the art of interpretation itself, which would
require an entire book. OceanofPDF .com8
Hope is the thing with feathers That per ches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the wor ds,
And never stops at all . —E MILY DICKINSON
OceanofPDF .comBecoming Exceptional
Psychologist Al Siebert became interested in the personalities of survivors
when he joined the paratroopers just after college in 1953. His training
cadre consisted of the few survivors of a unit that had been virtually wiped
out in Korea. He found these veterans to be tough but more patient than
he’d expected. In response to mistakes they usually made a joke instead of
getting angry . More important, Siebert wrote, “I observed that they had a
relaxed awareness. Each one seemed to have a sort of personal radar that
was always on scan.” He realized that it wasn’ t primarily luck that had
brought these men through their ordeal. Throughout his career Siebert has continued to study survivors. He has
found that one of their most prominent characteristics is a complexity of
character , a union of many opposites that he has termed biphasic traits. They are both serious and playful, tough and gentle, logical and intuitive,
hard-working and lazy, shy and aggressive, introspective and outgoing, and
so forth. They are paradoxical people who don’ t fit neatly into the usual
psychological categories. This makes them more flexible than most people,
with a wider array of resources to draw upon. Siebert wondered how the survivor personality keeps from being
immobilized by its contradictions. Building on concepts of Ruth Benedict
and Abraham Maslow , and interviewing hundreds of people who had lived
through all kinds of hardships, Siebert found that survivors have a hierarchy
of needs and that, unlike most people, they pursue all of them. Beginning
with the most basic, these needs are: survival, safety , acceptance by others,
self-esteem, and self-actualization. One of the main needs that distinguished
survivors from others, however , went beyond self-actualization: a need for
syner gy. Siebert defines the need for syner gy as the need to have things
work well for oneself and others. Survivors, then, act not only from self-interest but also from the interest
of others, even in the most stressful situations. They clean up messes and
make things safer or more ef ficient. In short, they give of themselves,
leaving the world better than they found it. Their relaxed awareness and the
confidence that it brings allow them to save their ener gies for the really
important things. When things are going well, they let well enough alone,
leaving themselves free for curiosity about new developments or potentialproblems. They may seem uninvolved at times, but they are “foul-weather
friends.” They show up when there’ s trouble. SUR VIVORS OF  ILLNESS
Siebert’ s survival characteristics are remarkably similar to those of
patients who do well in the Simonton program and in ECaP . The Simontons
have summarized the psychological profile of their exceptional patients as
follows: They are generally successful at careers they like, and they remain
employed during illness or return to work soon. They are receptive and
creative, but sometimes hostile, having strong egos and a sense of their own
adequacy . They have a high degree of self-esteem and self-love. They are
rarely docile. They retain control of their lives. They are intelligent, with a
strong sense of reality . They are self-reliant: they don’ t need  to be included
among others although they value  interactions with others. Although
concerned with their own welfare, they are also tolerant and concerned with
others. They tend to be nonconformists with a permissive morality—they
are unprejudiced, and they appreciate diversity among other people. As patients, those who have or are developing survival traits are self-
reliant and seek solutions rather than lapsing into depression. They interpret
problems as redirections, not failures. They are the ones who read or
meditate in the waiting room instead of staring forlornly into space. As an
ECaP  member once put it, “Pessimism is a luxury I can’ t afford.” One
cancer patient vomited so frequently during her course of radiation
treatments that she couldn’ t absorb enough food to keep herself nourished. So she set the alarm for 4 A.M. every day , had breakfast then, and had lunch
at 8 A.M. That way she had two meals digested before her afternoon
treatment, and her vitality was restored. Our goal in ECaP  is to help people live by developing the resilience,
adaptability , and confidence of the survivor personality . One of my patients
told me she’d asked her doctor whether anybody ever got over what she
had. I confronted her with the question “If you were in a concentration
camp, would you ask a guard, ‘Does anybody ever get out of here?’” It
turned out that she’d been in a concentration camp, so she knew exactly
what I was talking about. Just as negativity feeds on itself, so does the positive outlook of a
survivor , and the body reflects the mind. When I went on the Phil DonahueShow with three ECaP  members in April of 1979, a makeup man came into
our crowded dressing room, looked around, and asked, “Okay , who are the
cancer patients?” I guess he expected three green women. He simply
couldn’ t tell, and that was one of the best psychotherapy sessions these
patients ever had, an enormous boost to their sense of well-being. One of these three ECaP  women met a former boyfriend in Chicago,
stayed, and married him. She chose not to have radiation therapy for her
breast cancer . She is alive and well today , and I feel that her remarriage and
the redirection of her life helped save her . One of the others, who has had
cancer twice, is also free of the disease today . The third patient, named Melanie, later died—but not of cancer , rather
from a treatment complication, an infection after a bone-marrow transplant. Her story began during a divorce when her husband asked her how she was
doing. She said, “I’m having a very dif ficult time,” and he said, “Oh, you
look terrific.” She thought, “I’ll never share anything with him again.” She
held all her feelings inside and developed leukemia. She made a very
significant change in her lifestyle thereafter . Many times, when her
physicians thought she would not survive, she did. This happened so often
that later on, when it really  looked as though she wouldn’ t survive, her
physicians reinforced her beliefs by telling her they expected her to recover ,
and she did once more. Melanie got to the point where she literally ran out
of chemotherapy options, because she had so many remissions. Finally , she
underwent a bone-marrow transplant, which is not usual in someone as old
as she. (She was in her thirties.) I sent a letter to the hospital, explaining
what an exceptional patient she was. They accepted her and learned from
her that age alone is not the significant issue, but rather your will to live and
survival characteristics. One of the most heartening aspects of ECaP’ s work is the way our
members can often help each other . Recently one of my patients told me
she’d had a call from her brother , who was facing serious back sur gery. She
gave him a lesson in how to behave as an exceptional patient, and a few
days later he called her again to say he was being dischar ged on the sixth
day, even though his doctor had told him he’d be in for twelve to twenty-
four. Siebert, too, has found that the survivor personality can be learned—
although it can’ t be “taught” the way algebra or chemistry can. He
conceives of it as a broad process of psychological and neurologicalmaturation, a growing up that paradoxically involves remaining a child, too. It means being childlike but not childish. Siebert lists the following
indicators of self-motivated growth:
Aimless playfulness for its own sake, like that of a happy child. The ability to become so deeply absorbed in an activity that you lose
track of time, external events, and all your worries, often whistling,
humming, or talking to yourself absentmindedly . A child’ s innocent curiosity . An observant, nonjudgmental style. Willingness to look foolish, make mistakes, and laugh at yourself. Open-minded acceptance of criticism about yourself. An active imagination, daydreams, mental play , and conversations
with yourself. Seibert has also identified the following signs that show a person is
reaching the syner gistic level of functioning:
Empathy for other people, including opponents. The ability to see patterns and relationships in or ganizations or
equipment. Recognition of subliminal perception or intuition as a valid source of
information. Good timing, especially when speaking or taking an original action. The ability to see early clues about future developments and take
appropriate action. Cooperative nonconformity: refusing to be controlled by improper
laws or social standards, yet choosing to abide by them most of the
time for the sake of others—unless attempting to change them. In other
words, an avoidance of empty gestures. Being comfortable in complex, confusing situations that others find
bewildering and frightening. Keeping a positive outlook and confidence in adversity . The ability to absorb new , unexpected, or unpleasant experiences and
be changed by them. A talent for serendipity: the ability to convert what others consider
accidents or misfortunes into something useful.The feeling of getting smarter and enjoying life more as you get older . *
If interpreted as a set of goals, this list may seem formidable, but as I
discuss the major ones in the rest of this chapter , I hope to show that they
develop automatically from personal growth toward expressing love, both
self-love and love for others. And, although personality change is hard, you
can make each of these traits your own. This doesn’ t happen simply by
wishing, however . There are two major ways to make the changes easier:
By working within a supportive therapy group or by sharing honestly with
your most trusted loved ones, you can confront your habits and behavior . A
friend has called this process “carefrontation,” to combine the love and
confrontation in one word. The second way of facilitating these changes is
by regular meditation in which you visualize yourself as you want to
become. This helps you work at the unconscious level of the mind, where
all meaningful change occurs, rather than just on the conscious level of
awareness. SELF-RESPECT  AND CREA TIVITY
“What matters is what you think about yourself. You must find the part
in life that fits you and then give up acting; your profession is being.” So
wrote Quentin Crisp, the English author and lecturer who calls himself a
“retired waif” on his tax returns and chronicled his long journey to self-
acceptance in The Naked Civil Servant . When they were boys, his brothers
wanted to be football players and ships’  captains. He wanted to be a chronic
invalid. Until Crisp “gave up acting,” he actually was a chronic invalid. After he stopped worrying what other people might think about his
eccentric dress, gay lifestyle, brightly dyed hair , and gently subversive
opinions, he became robustly healthy , taking long and hectic speaking tours
in his stride well into his seventies. Emotional honesty and self-acceptance lead to better physical health, as
science is beginning to document. In 1979, for example, Drs. Walter Smith
and Stephen Bloomfield found that people who can cry freely catch fewer
colds than people who always hold back their tears. These are realities that
women tend to understand better than men, for women are more used to
accepting and working with their emotions, while men’ s lives tend to
revolve around their work. This is no doubt why ECaP  groups so far havebeen composed mainly of women. And women have better survival rates
for the same cancer than men. Psychologists estimate that less than 20 percent of the population has an
“inner locus of control,” the kind of self-possession in which persons are
guided by their own standards rather than beliefs about what others may
think. This integrity is a lar ge part of the survivor personality , and the
percentage is the same as the percentage of exceptional patients I’ve found
among patients in general. As Elida Evans observed in her groundbreaking
1926 study of the cancer personality , “Development of individuality is a
safeguard to life and health. It lifts a person out of the collective authority .”
I find in rural or rugged areas the percentage of exceptional patients is
higher . They are independent, self-reliant people to begin with. Becoming your own person releases your creativity . Freed from the
bonds of convention and the fear of what others may think, the mind
responds with new solutions, new goals, and an awareness that beauty and
peace come from within. You become able to take risks, to experiment with
your own life. In his memoirs Most of All, They T aught Me Happiness , Robert Müller
recounts an extreme example of the survivor ’s ability to think creatively
under pressure. In 1943 Müller was a member of the French Resistance. Using the name Parizot, he had infiltrated an agency of the Vichy
government, where he gathered information on German troop movements. Tipped of f that the Nazis had just driven up to arrest him, he fled to the attic
of his of fice building. Word came that half a dozen Gestapo men, knowing
he was there, were methodically searching the premises. Müller had been following Dr . Émile Coué’ s program of autosuggestion
and positive thinking. He had been introduced to this method by a friend
who had been hospitalized with tuberculosis and told that he would not
survive the disease. He had asked Müller to bring him books by Coué, and
Müller had read them, too. His friend had recovered from the tuberculosis,
inspiring Müller ’s belief in Coué’ s system. By repeating to himself that the situation could be seen as a thrilling
adventure, Müller calmed himself enough to realize the one thing the Nazis
would not expect him to do—walk downstairs to meet them. By taking of f his glasses, slicking down his hair with water , grabbing a
file folder from a vacant desk, and lighting a cigarette, Parizot managed to
change his appearance somewhat and assume an air of calm. Walkingdownstairs, he came upon his secretary as she was being interrogated. He
asked her what all the excitement was about. Without batting an eye, she
said the “gentlemen” were looking for Mr . Parizot. “Parizot?” he exclaimed. “But I just saw him a few minutes ago on the fourth floor!” The Nazis
rushed upstairs, and Müller was led to safety by his friends. Few of us are put to such a direct test, but we all have the opportunity to
live inventively . People who develop their full individuality often change
jobs, moving from a career that bores them but gives them security into one
that brings meaning to their lives and provides them with a way of giving
something to the world rather than just getting something from it. The late
Senator Frank Church of Idaho, for example, was in Harvard Law School in
1947 when he was diagnosed as having incurable cancer and given six
months to live. Then he found another doctor who prescribed the then-new
radiation treatment that started his cure. In an interview three decades later , Church described his decision to
enter politics to try to do some good for other people: “I had previously
tended to be more cautious—but having so close a brush with death at 23, I
felt afterwards that life itself is such a chancy proposition that the only way
to live it is by taking great chances.” As a result, he was not afraid to be the
first senator to publicly oppose the Vietnam War, to investigate CIA  and
FBI crimes, and to sponsor politically dangerous civil-rights and
environmental legislation. His own defeat and the repudiation of his ideals
in the conservative landslide of 1980 may have contributed to his death
from cancer in 1984, thirty-seven years after the original prognosis. There’ s no question that job satisfaction is important to health. As Hans
Selye, the world’ s greatest authority on stress, has pointed out, “If you do
what you like, you never really work. Your work is your play .” Somebody
once came upon Geor ge Halas, owner of the Chicago Bears football team,
sitting in his of fice on a weekend. He asked Halas, then in his eighties,
“Geor ge, at your age, what are you doing here working?” Halas replied,
“It’s only work if there’ s someplace else you’d rather be.”
The person suf fering in an unsatisfying career often ar gues that there
aren’ t enough interesting, creative jobs to go around. This may be true, but
so few people exercise their creativity that the opportunities exist for those
who seek them. Nothing can be gained without ef fort, and, as William
James noted, most people live too far within self-imposed limits.There is a seeming contradiction here that traps many people. Most of
us have been taught that self-love and love for others are incompatible, that
we can’ t satisfy our own needs and still give of ourselves. If we become
survivors, we realize that our deepest need is to love and be at peace and,
our motivation becomes spiritual or selfless, not selfish. Living with the
knowledge that we’re going to die someday means that we may choose to
give something to the world. In the process, we develop an inner sense of
worth that helps us achieve goals that improve the quality of life. We find
ourselves striving for the survivor ’s paradoxical goal—to have things work
out well for ourselves and others. People who suf fer in unsatisfying jobs are assuming the victim role. Nothing is going to help them if they don’ t help themselves. Too much is
made of work defined as a job, anyway . People often come into my of fice
and say , “I’d like to be a therapist. Where can I do this work?” I say ,
“Where do you work now?” When they tell me, I say , “Okay , now look
around you, and you’ll find that everyone in that of fice has pain. Help them,
and you’ll immediately become a therapist.” A patient of mine named Ted,
who eight years ago developed two brain tumors, one malignant and one
benign, put it this way: “I used to be a miserable son of a bitch. I used to
install carpets, and I would tell people, ‘All I want is money .’ Now what I
do [hospital volunteer work] is free, and I love it.”
Stephanie Matthews has said, “The biggest obstacle we have to get over
is the idea that work is the only meaningful purpose in life—or for some
women it’ s supposed to be their children.” This is another area where
meditation and visualization can be of enormous help. A person can
temporarily disconnect from the pressures and unhappiness of the present
job, and image a more congenial future. Imaging channels mental ener gy
toward making the desired result happen, and as you begin to act upon your
new awareness, you create new opportunities—both consciously and
unconsciously . We prepare our future by what we think and do each day . I recommend
that patients keep a diary of their thoughts. As they read it later , they will
see how they prepared their future by their thoughts, which then motivated
their activities. Jung said, “The future is unconsciously prepared long in
advance, and therefore can be guessed by clairvoyants.”
In ECaP  we help people, living with the uncertainty of illness, define
their reasons for living. Many patients resist this ef fort, feeling there’ s nopoint in creating goals they may not live to carry out. And it certainly does
take great courage, for when life is joyous, the loss seems greater . We are
trying to get people to take on life as an exciting challenge and see it as a
gift or an opportunity to do something. I was recently called by Howard, a gentleman who’d been told by his
doctor he’d be dead in three months. He went home, sat down in the living
room and told his wife to cancel his dental appointments. His wife said,
“I’m not going to have you sitting around the living room for three months
dying.” He came to me all the way from Montana. I said, “Anybody who
comes here from Montana is not going to die in three months. You’re
different. You’re a fighter .” Eighteen months later , Howard is still alive. Written up in his hometown paper and shown meditating in his hot tub. His
doctor said, “Boy , you’re lucky .” He said, “It’ s not luck. It’ s hard work.”
But he said the thing that turned him around was my saying, “Y ou’re
different.” I try to help people realize that it’ s the process of moving toward
a goal that is important. As we change and work toward sainthood, the body
benefits. The process is the product. When we’re setting goals in ECaP , we try not to get stuck in a time
frame. This sets us up for failure if we don’ t accomplish our aims on
schedule. The object is to help patients set realistic  targets. Achievement of
them reinforces feelings of competence and self-worth, and the goals
themselves immediately make the future a brighter prospect. As Nietzsche
wrote, “He who has a ‘why’  to live can bear almost any ‘how .’” The
ultimate goal is simply to live for ourselves, in a selfless way . We help patients work toward a balanced set of goals that reflect all of
their needs. Many people, especially men, tend to think only in terms of
work-related goals, while many women tend to set goals having to do with
others—such as getting a child through college or finishing a charity drive
—to the exclusion of their own needs. We encourage people to consider work, physical development,
emotional and spiritual needs, help to others, and pure play when they set
their goals—in other words, to integrate all aspects of their lives. It’ s
especially important to know what needs have been met by the illness and
to set goals that meet those needs in place of the illness. Once again, meditation and visualization are powerful tools to help you
be aware of your true needs and then make them happen. Seeing what you
want in your mind’ s eye helps convince your unconscious that it’ s possible,and that helps create an atmosphere of hope. You are now receiving a “live”
message. The process of restructuring your life, of becoming an authentic person,
means ceasing to think of yourself as a thing—a collection of habits, a job,
a role. This is being a slave of your self-image and, in a sense, already dead. Instead we try to help patients understand themselves as dynamic, ever -
changing processes. This comes about by recognizing that we are all
perfectly imperfect. We are all bound by the inevitability of death and the
fact that certain choices may speed the destructive processes. Nor do we
know exactly when we will die, and within that uncertainty we all have
almost unlimited options. From a scientific viewpoint Geor ge T. Lock Land, in his book Grow or
Die, has shown how our human condition is much like what we’ve learned
about all living cells:
 
The nature of a cell, just like what we call “human nature,” is not
something that is, but something forever in the process of becoming . It is
not wholly determined, but plays a great part in determining itself. As the
human recapitulates the same series of events that take place in the life of a
cell, his behavior depends on the alternatives available for growth. If the
conditions of nutrition and feedback permit new growth patterns, the result
will be creative and responsible behavior . If not, the lack of alternatives
results in a r egression to mor e basic gr owth patterns . From an artistic point of view , Robert Henri has described the same
kind of growth in The Art Spirit :
 
When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may
be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He
becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and
opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are
trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages
possible. INDEPENDENCE AND ASSER TIVENESSPeople who always smile, never tell anyone their troubles, and neglect
their own needs are the ones who are most likely to become ill. For them,
the main problem often is learning to say no without guilt. Many only
become able to live for themselves, to tell others what they really feel, after
the shock of the diagnosis. One patient, who never expressed displeasure at
anything , began to improve when she was able to tell her husband that she
didn’ t like the family dog. For Thelma, whom I mentioned in Chapter 2, the
first milestone of growth came when, for once in her life, she walked out of
the house with the phone ringing, and when she finally called the police
when her alcoholic husband threatened her . The most important kind of assertiveness a patient can demonstrate is in
the formation of a participatory relationship with the doctor . Most patients
don’t talk to their doctors or ask a lot of questions for fear of angering this
person who is going to “make” them well. Of course, no one can make you
well. You heal. Many people get well while using alternative therapies. This
does not necessarily mean that the therapy itself is useful, but that people
heal doing something they believe in, something that gives them hope. That’ s what we help people learn in ECaP , and it often means helping
doctors learn the same lesson. One morning on rounds a patient asked me,
“What’ s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Then why are you frowning?”
“I’m not frowning, just thinking.”
“Well, do your thinking in the hallway and smile in here.” Our patients
are our best teachers. When a nurse tells me that some patient is being uncooperative,
refusing to get undressed and put on the standard hospital gown, or asking
all sorts of questions before submitting to a test, I say , “Fine. He’ll live
longer .” And Leonard Derogatis’ s work mentioned in Chapter 1, showing
that long-term survivors had “poorer” attitudes as judged by physicians,
supports what I’ve observed on the wards. The so-called “problem patient”
is also the rapid healer , the long-term survivor , and the one with the active
immune system. That’ s why I encourage people to behave as individuals
when they enter a hospital, by following this list of suggestions, which my
wife and I call “Good Patient, Bad Patient”:1. For your hospital stay , take clothes that are practical, comfortable, and
individual. Plan to walk as much as possible. 2. Take room decorations of a personal and inspirational nature. Make
sure your room has a view of the sky and the outside world. Do not
accept a room that faces a brick wall. 3. Question authority—tests, etc. Speak up for yourself, your needs and
comfort in all areas, both before and during tests. 4. Make your doctor aware of your unique needs and desires. Of fer to
share books, tapes, and conversation. 5. Take tape recorder and earphones, along with meditation tapes and
some of your favorite music. Record conversations with your
physician for later review and for family use. 6. Use your tape recorder in the operating room and recovery room to
hear music, meditation, or messages during and after sur gery. Have
someone put a reminder into the doctor ’s orders to play the entire tape
continuously . 7. If you are having an operation, instruct the sur geon and
anesthesiologist to repeat positive messages to you. The simplest is
that you will awaken comfortable, thirsty , and hungry . 8. Tell the sur geon to speak to you during sur gery, honestly but hopefully ,
and also to repeat positive messages but absolutely avoid negative
ones. 9. Speak to your own body , particularly the night before sur gery,
suggesting that the blood leave the area of sur gery and that you’ll heal
rapidly . 10. Arrange visits and calls from those who will nurture and love you, as
well as give you carefrontation when appropriate. 11. Get moving as soon as possible after sur gery. Leave the hospital to
attend group meetings, go for walks, or have meals out with friends. Honest expression of your feelings can make a big dif ference in the
quality of care you receive. Emma, one of our exceptional patients, was
depressed by the gray of her oncologist’ s waiting room, so one day she
stood up and said, “This place is morbid. You can’ t get well here, and I
don’t want anybody here to sign insurance forms until this place is
redecorated.”
The secretary came out and said, “Y ou can’ t do that.”Emma simply replied, “It’ s done.” And the of fice was repainted blue. Now Emma is “the woman who made us redecorate our of fice.” She’ s
treated like a human being, not a disease. Emma had lung nodules and asked her physician, “How do you know
that those nodules are due to cancer rather than heartworm?” (Heartworm is
a parasitic disease of dogs that is prevalent in Connecticut.) The doctor answered, “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’re due
to cancer .”
She persisted: “How do you know? ” When he said he couldn’ t be sure,
she demanded, “Do some tests.” Blood tests showed a strong possibility
that the nodules were heartworm, which recent statistics showed was
especially common in the town where she lived. Now Emma’ s doctor began to sound like her . He called a chest sur geon
and said, “I have a patient with lung nodules, and I don’ t know whether
they’re due to heartworm or cancer .”
The sur geon replied, “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’re due to
cancer .” But her doctor requested more tests to be sure. Emma’ s self-
assertiveness had created a new , more ef fective doctor -patient relationship. THE FOUR F AITHS
Phyllis, a patient who had an extensive pancreatic cancer that was no
longer responding to treatment, went home to die. Several months later she
returned to the of fice. One of my partners examined her . He opened the
door of the examining room and called me: “Hey , Bernie, you’re interested
in this stuf f.”
I came in, and he said, “Her cancer ’s gone.”
“Phyllis,” I said, “T ell them what happened.”
She said, “Oh, you know what happened.”
“I know that I know ,” I said, “but I’d like the others to know .”
Phyllis replied, “I decided to live to be a hundred and leave my troubles
to God.”
I could really end the book here, because this peace of mind can heal
anything. I believe faith is the essence, a simple solution, yet too hard for
most people to practice. To verify this I went to God (sur geons have that prerogative) and asked
why I couldn’ t hang a sign in my waiting room saying, “Leave yourtroubles to God, you don’ t need me.” God said, “I’ll show you why . I’ll
meet you at the hospital at 10 A.M. Saturday .” (God likes to play doctor .) On
Saturday he said, “T ake me to your sickest patient.” I told him about a
woman with cancer whose husband had run of f with another woman. He
said, “Good case,” and we went up to her room. I said, “Ma’am, God is
going to come in and tell you how to get well.” I always introduce him so
patients are not overwhelmed. She responded, “Oh, wonderful.” God
entered the room and said, “All you have to do is love, accept, for give, and
choose to be happy ,” and she looked Him in the eye and said, “Have you
met my husband yet?” Most of us want God to change the external aspects
of our lives so we don’ t have to change internally . We want to be exempt
from the responsibility for our own happiness. We often find it easier to
resent and suf fer in the role of victim than to love, for give, accept, and find
inner peace. As W. H. Auden has written,
We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die. Yet, when we choose to love, healing ener gy is released in our bodies. Energy itself is loving and intelligent and available to all of us. Now I felt I had a dilemma: If God’ s love could cure people, I
wondered, why should I remain a sur geon? So I returned to Him and said,
“God, you know one of my patients got well leaving her troubles to you. Why should I remain a sur geon?” Why not just teach people to love?” And
God in His beautiful, sweet, melodious voice said to me, “Bernie, render
unto the sur geon what is the sur geon’ s, and render unto God what is God’ s.”
(I find that God does that a lot—speaks in parables and leaves you totally
confused.) Since then I’ve come to understand that God and I both have a
role in getting people well. Let me illustrate what I mean with an old story I’ve adapted. A man
with cancer is told by his primary physician he’ll be dead in an hour . He
runs to the window , looks up at the sky , and says, “God, save me.” Out of
the blue comes that wonderful melodious voice, saying, “Don’ t worry , my
son. I will save you.” The man climbs back into bed, feeling reassured.His physician called me and I walk in, and say , “If I oper ate in an hour ,
I can save you.” “No, thanks,” says the man, “God will save me.” Then an
oncologist, a radiation therapist and a nutritional therapist all tell him, “W e
can save you.” “I don’ t need you. God will save me,” was his reply to all of
them. In an hour the man dies. When he gets to heaven, he walks up to God
and says, “What happened? You said you’d save me, and here I am, dead.”
“You dumbbell. I sent you a sur geon, an oncologist, a radiation
therapist, and a nutritional therapist.” There is a role for the mechanic when
he is the patient’ s choice of therapy . I can be God’ s gift and tool also just as
the bible states medication is. In ECaP  we’ve found that four faiths are crucial to recovery from
serious illness: faith in oneself, one’ s doctor , one’ s treatment, and one’ s
spiritual faith. We have discussed the first three, but the last, although
seldom totally achievable by most of us, is in many ways a key to the
others. The “spiritual life” has many meanings. It need not be reflected in any
commitment to an or ganized religion, and we all know that some of the
most outwardly pious people are the least spiritual. These are the ones who
give other people “spiritual ulcers,” as a participant in one of my workshops
phrased it. From the standpoint of a healer , I view spirituality as including
the belief in some meaning or order in the universe. I view the force behind
creation as a loving, intelligent ener gy. For some, this is labeled God, for
others it can be seen simply as a source of healing. From this there comes
the ability to find peace, to resolve the apparent contradictions between
one’s emotions and reality , between internal and external. Spirituality
means acceptance of what is (not to be confused with resignation or
approval of evil). Jesus told us to love our enemies, not like them and not
have no enemies. In an abandoned, bombed-out house in Germany at the
end of World War II, Allied soldiers found a testimony to this faith
scratched into a basement wall by one of the victims of the Holocaust:
I believe in the sun—even when it does not shine;
I believe in love—even when it is not shown;
I believe in God—even when he does not speak.Spirituality means the ability to find peace and happiness in an
imperfect world, and to feel that one’ s own personality is imperfect but
acceptable. From this peaceful state of mind come both creativity and the
ability to love unselfishly , which go hand in hand. Acceptance, faith,
forgiveness, peace, and love are the traits that define spirituality for me. These characteristics always  appear in those who achieve unexpected
healing of serious illness. Most physicians won’ t “try God” until the patient is near death. Then
they may prescribe a hope and a prayer . I believe it’ s far better to make a
connection with the patient’ s spiritual beliefs earlier , when the job is easier . Anyone who believes that the world is basically a beautiful place—even if
it came about because of Nature rather than God—has a reason to remain in
it. A person who believes in a benevolent higher power has a potent reason
for hope—and hope is physiologic. Obviously , the “medical meaning” of religion varies from person to
person. Those who profess a faith merely because their parents did or
because it increases their social standing are unlikely to really believe it can
heal them. Sometimes religion even becomes a negative factor . People
think, “If God gave me this illness, who am I to get well?” Beliefs that lean
heavily on guilt, original sin, and predestination are of little use for healing. By the same token, it’ s hard to find peace in life if you believe death is a
meaningless end or earthly existence is futile. That’ s why I prefer to speak
of spirituality rather than religion, to avoid doctrinal limitations. It’ s
essential not to force a stereotyped picture of God on anyone. In ECaP  we
seek instead to use what is positive in each patient’ s beliefs. I want to emphasize here the dif ference between wishing, which is
passive, and hope, which is active. Hoping means seeing that the outcome
you want is possible, and then working for it. Wishing means just sitting
there, waiting for a miracle to happen out of the blue. Jung said, “Every
problem, therefore, brings the possibility of a widening of consciousness,
but also the necessity of saying goodbye to childlike unconsciousness and
trust in nature,” a process he likened to leaving the Garden of Eden. I
encourage patients to have faith in God but not to expect Him to do all the
work. I think of God as the same potential healing force—an intelligent,
loving ener gy or light—in each person’ s life. Even scientists are now telling
us that ener gy has intelligence. Physicist Carl Pribram has said, “Theuniverse must be friendly . It gave us physics, so we can understand what all
those who preceded us already knew .” I suggest that patients think of illness
not as God’ s will but as our deviation from God’ s will. To me it is the
absence of spirituality that leads to dif ficulties. I know that many patients,
when they develop an illness or have a recurrence, are angry at God. It’ s
important to be able to ar gue with God, as is traditional in Judaism. Continued helpless rage at the universe can’ t possibly lead to health. God
isn’t sitting up there with a clipboard, saying, “Let’ s see who I can make
trouble for today .” On the contrary , God is a resource. The ener gy of hope
and faith is always available. We all must die someday , but the spiritual way
is always open to everyone and can make our lives beautiful whenever we
choose it. As German dramatist Christian Friedrich Hebbel once wrote,
“Life is not anything; it is only the opportunity for something.”
UNCONDITIONAL  LOVE
Many people, especially cancer patients, grow up believing there is
some terrible flaw at the center of their being, a defect they must hide if
they are to have any chance for love. Feeling unlovable and condemned to
loneliness if their true selves become known, such individuals set up
defenses against sharing their innermost feelings with anyone. They feel
their ability to love shriveling up, which leads to further despair . Dostoyevsky expressed the feeling when he wrote, “I am convinced that the
only Hell which exists is the inability to love.” Because such people feel a
profound emptiness inside, they come to see all relationships and
transactions in terms of getting  something to fill the vaguely understood
void within. They give love only on condition that they get something for it,
whether comfort, security , praise, or a similar love. This “if” love is
exhausting and prevents you from expressing your au thentic self. It leads to
an even deeper sense of emptiness, which keeps the vicious circle going. I feel that all disease is ultimately related to a lack of love, or to love
that is only conditional, for the exhaustion and depression of the immune
system thus created leads to physical vulnerability . I also feel that all
healing is related to the ability to give and accept unconditional love. This
was strikingly borne out in the story of one of my cervical cancer patients, a
secretary named Sherry .As a child, Sherry felt unloved by her stepmother , and as a teenager she
formed a strong attachment to one of her teachers. One day , in the school
gym, Sherry told some of her friends that she loved Mrs. Johnson. Some of
the children told the teacher , “Sherry loves you,” and she called Sherry into
her of fice. “Sherry , do you love me from near or far?” Mrs. Johnson asked. The
girl didn’ t know what the woman was talking about, so she said, “From
near.”
Mrs. Johnson then called Sherry’ s stepmother and told her that her
daughter was a lesbian. When Sherry came home from school that day , her
stepmother confronted her with the information. As she later told me, “I
didn’ t know what ‘lesbian’  meant, but I got the message that love gets you
in trouble, and I decided to stop loving.”
Sherry lost her friends and became so lonely and desperate that she
“would get dressed and walk the streets hoping people would look out their
windows and wave at me.” When she finally got married, she couldn’ t
believe in her husband’ s love, and kept asking him, over and over , if he
loved her . “I know if I hadn’ t developed cancer ,” she said, “he would have
left me.”
The impact of the disease, as well as group therapy in ECaP , enabled
Sherry to change her outlook. She opened her heart to love, revitalized her
marriage, and made a stand against her illness. She was doing very well—and had even gone back to work—until her
birthday . With six children, her husband, and her father -in-law all living in
the same house, there was not one present for Sherry . Everybody had a
reason, but underneath they were all saying, “W e’re getting used to your
being dead.” She hid her pain and despair from everyone, and two months
later she had a recurrence. Once when I visited her soon afterward, she told me she was “so upset
about dying, because I’m trying to prove what you’re doing is right.” She
was still trying to stay alive for the wrong reasons—to please other people
instead of herself. And all because of the lack of real love in her formative
years. She and her husband were never able to share their deepest feelings,
though I kept trying to help them do so. Once I gave a talk near Sherry’ s
office and told them I’d dedicate it to her , hoping the whole family would
come. Her husband wrote me a note saying, “I’m sorry , I’m busy that night,but call me if you want to.” However , the note had no name, address, or
phone number . Its unconscious message was, “Don’ t call me.”
When I can get people to accept themselves as whole individuals,
lovable as they are, they become able to give from an inner strength. They
find that unconditional love does not subtract from some limited emotional
storehouse. Instead it multiplies itself. It feels good to give, it makes the
recipient feel good, and sooner or later it returns. As Walt Whitman wrote:
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I ef fuse
unreturned love,
But now I think there is no unreturned love. The pay is certain, one way or another . (I loved a certain person ardently , and my love was not returned,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.) One of the immediate rewards is a “live” message to the body . I am
convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known stimulant of
the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune
globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how . But if I can teach them
to love themselves and others fully , the same changes happen automatically . The truth is: love heals. I realized this intuitively many years ago, during my resi dency . A
gentleman with severe staphylococcal pneumonia and empyema (an
accumulation of pus in the chest) had gone into cardiac arrest. I gave him
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When I came out of the room, the nurses
were all shaking their heads and saying, “Y ou’re going to get sick. How
could you do that?” I had a feeling then that my body would resist the
infection because I had acted out of love for the man, and indeed I didn’ t
get sick. Years later I heard an account of a nearly identical experience by Dr . Jerry Jampolsky , of the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiburon,
California. As part of his training, Jerry was sent to a tuberculosis
sanatorium. He was frightened that he would contract the disease, and
decided that he could take a deep breath when he got there, and hold it for
three months. One night he was called to see a woman with active
tuberculosis, who’d had a massive pulmonary hemorrhage and cardiac
arrest. He gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and the nurses told him,“How could you do that? Now you’re going to get tuberculosis.” He never
did, and he realized that he was not vulnerable while he was doing
something for someone out of love. His realization strengthened mine, and
now I’ve come to understand that this is why Mother Teresa and dedicated
nurses can work among hundreds of sick, infected people every day without
becoming ill. As the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart wrote:
 
The bodily food we take is changed into us, but the spiritual food we
receive changes us into itself; therefore divine love is not taken into us, for
that would make two things. But divine love takes us into itself, and we are
one with it. SCIENCE AND THE HEALING SPIRIT
Even though love is hard to study scientifically , medical research is
beginning to confirm its ef fects. At the Menninger Foundation in Topeka,
Kansas, people who are in love, in the romantic sense, have been found to
have reduced levels of lactic acid in their blood, making them less tired, and
higher levels of endorphins, making them euphoric and less subject to pain. Their white blood cells also responded better when faced with infections,
and thus they got fewer colds. Dr . Fred Corn-hill and Murina Levesque of
the Ohio State University College of Medicine reported in 1979 that “tender
loving care” reduced atherosclerosis and the risk of heart attack by about 50
percent in rabbits fed lar ge amounts of cholesterol. We also know that
infants who do not receive love will waste away and die, even under the
best conditions of sanitation and nutrition. The reason has been found by
Dr. Christopher Coe of Stanford, who proved that the separation of infant
monkeys from their mothers suppresses the babies’  immune systems. In 1982, Harvard psychologists David McClelland and Carol Kirshnit
found that even movies about love increase levels of immunoglobulin-A  in
the saliva, the first line of defense against colds and other viral diseases. A
Nazi propaganda film and a short on gardening had no ef fect, but a
documentary on Mother Teresa’ s work produced a sharp rise in
immunoglobulin—especially in persons motivated by altruism. However ,
the ef fect was unrelated to the subjects’  conscious like or dislike of Mother
Teresa, suggesting that the images of love had their ef fect at the
unconscious level. Although the improvement lasted less than an hour , itcould be prolonged by having the subjects think about times in their lives
when they had been nurtured by someone. Some of the most telling work has been done in Israel by Jack Medalie
and Uri Goldbourt. The two researchers studied ten thousand men with the
risk factors for angina pectoris—abnormal heart rhythms and high anxiety
levels. Medalie and Goldbourt used psychological tests and questionnaires
to find out what other factors determined which men would actually
develop the chest pains. The most accurate predictor turned out to be a
“No” answer to the question “Does your wife show you her love?”
Furthermore, as Leo Buscaglia has pointed out, insurance companies have
found that if a wife kisses her husband good-bye in the morning he has
fewer auto accidents and lives five years longer . Unfortunately , there isn’ t always a direct relationship between spiritual
change or white-cell count and the cure of an illness. The idea is to love
because it feels good, not because it will help us live forever . Love is the
end itself, not the means. Love makes life worth living, no matter how long
life lasts. It also increases the likelihood of physical healing, but that is the
bonus, the icing on the cake. Yet, though quality of life is the most important thing, people naturally
want to extend its quantity , too. Most of the people who have changed in
response to illness, those mentioned in these pages and thousands more like
them, have outlived their doctors’  expectations. By their own lives they
have proven that love and authentic spirituality do increase one’ s time as
well as one’ s joy. In the final analysis, this kind of evidence on the person-
by-person level is the important kind. However , a small but growing
handful of investigators are placing this most dif ficult of research subjects
on a scientific basis. Their results, though preliminary , support what
exceptional patients have learned. The average survival time of the Simontons’  patients is about two and a
half times that of similar patients who receive only the standard medical
treatments. About 10 percent of their patients remain disease-free past the
standard five-year definition of a cancer cure—an extraordinarily high
number compared with the rate of self-induced healing among seriously ill
or “terminal” cancer patients in general. Yet this number should be even
higher . These patients are self-selected, having traveled long distances for
the program and put great ener gy into it. I believe that with more emphasison spiritual growth and availability of therapy programs, there would be an
even higher survival rate among these highly motivated patients. Dr. Kenneth Pelletier has made a psychological study of many patients
who recovered despite great odds. He found five characteristics common to
all of them:
1. Profound intrapsychic change through meditation, prayer , or other
spiritual practice. 2. Profound interpersonal changes, as a result: Their relations with other
people had been placed on a more solid footing. 3. Alterations in diet: These people no longer took their food for granted. They chose their food carefully for optimum nutrition. 4. A deep sense of the spiritual as well as material aspects of life. 5. A feeling that their recovery was not a gift nor spontaneous remission,
but rather a long, hard struggle that they had won for themselves. In 1977 a research group led by Dr . Edward Gilbert of Denver ’s
Presbyterian Medical Center completed one of the first controlled tests of
psychological treatment of cancer patients. Gilbert and his co-workers
asked independent physicians to examine a group of forty-eight patients and
predict how long they could expect to live using standard medical
treatments. The patients entered an eight-week program of individual and
group therapy , biofeedback, and training in meditation and visualization. Then the patients were tested by independent psychiatrists to see which
ones had made the most positive changes in their lives. Five patients were
graded as having changed most significantly , and four of these far exceeded
medical expectations. Of the other twenty-five then remaining in the group,
only one outlived the initial prognosis by a similar mar gin. One statistical study has been attempted with breast cancer patients in
ECaP  by medical student Geor ge Gellert and Yale epidemiologist Hal
Morgenstern. It showed an average survival time strikingly greater during
the follow up period, than that of members of a comparison group.
_OceanofPDF.com_Love_Medicine_n_Miracles_-_Bernie_Siegel.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        As your concentration improves, you can do imaging
meditation anywhere, even on a subway. Often the environmental noises
can be woven into the imagery or hypnotic suggestion and help deepen the
trance. The only requirement for ef fective visualization is development of
your imagination. Seek specific help from a trained therapist if you have
difficulty. We are not all visual and techniques for successful imagery or
hypnosis vary. This is discussed further in the appendix. The power of a vivid imagination struck me most clearly in the case of
Garrett, a young child who had a brain tumor. It was inoperable, and
following radiation treatments he still had his brain tumor. His doctors said
there were no further tests or treatments that could help. His parents took
him to the Biofeedback and Psychophysiology Center at the Menninger
Clinic, where one of the staf f taught him some self-regulation techniques
—“how to control his body with his mind. ” The staf f member had an
imagery tape but he thought it was too boring for kids and wanted to make a
tape that kids would like. Garrett decided he liked the idea of rocket ships,
as in a video game, flying around in his head, shooting at the tumor. He
imagined the cancer as “a big, round, dumb-looking thing” and blasted it
regularly. One night months later he told his father, “I can’ t find my tumor
anymore. ” Though his father sat with him to help him concentrate, all he
could see in his imagery was normal brain where his tumor used to be. Garrett wanted another CA T scan, but since the tumor was considered
incurable, there seemed no reason to put him through the experience orexpense. However after he fell down the stairs, a CA T scan was ordered to
check for a skull fracture, and the tumor was shown to be entirely gone. If we could just tell everybody, “Get out those rocket ships,” the
problem would be easy. Unfortunately, this technique doesn’ t always work. We just don’ t know enough about the process and how to individualize it
and create change at an unconscious level of the mind. From years of experience in using the visualization technique we do
know that the image must be chosen by the individual. It must be an image
that that person can see in the mind’ s eye as clearly as something seen by
the physical eyes. It must be an image with which the patient feels
completely comfortable. I believe one of the shortcomings of the
Simontons’  book is the absence of the spiritual aspects of healing. Since
their initial patients were an aggressive group, they assumed that everyone
would be comfortable attacking and killing cancer. A majority of people are
profoundly disturbed by any picture of themselves killing anything, even an
invading disease or ganism. The prevailing medical imagery of warfare is
terribly upsetting to such people, even if they aren’ t conscious of it. Medical
jargon words like assault, insult, blast, poison, and kill cause conscious and
unconscious rejection by the patient. One ECaP  patient, for example, a
young man named Ian, listened to his oncologist tell him his treatment
would kill his leukemia. Ian got up and left. On the way out, he said, “I’m a
Quaker, a conscientious objector, and I don’ t kill anything. ”
Ian entered individual and group psychotherapy, worked on developing
a clear conscience, took twenty grams of vitamin C every day, meditated,
and in general chose what was right for him. He visualized the appropriate
immune-system cells gently carrying the cancerous cells away and instead
of killing them flushing them out of the body. His disease slowly but
steadily improved for four years. Then one winter he fell on the ice, hit his
head, and suf fered a concussion. He was told to lie down for a month. He
used that month almost entirely for meditation and visualization. When he
went for his regular checkup, his doctor told him, “This is the best blood
count you’ve ever had. ” His wife said, “If we could just hit him in the head
once a month, he’d probably get well. ”
As far as cancer is concerned, Ian’ s attitude is actually more realistic
than the war model, because malignant cells are the body’ s own cells gone
astray. In a sense, then, a direct attack is an attack on oneself. Moreover,
most people feel comfortable about killing only out of love, in defense ofloved ones, friends, family, or children. Psychological studies show that
only about 15 percent of soldiers feel comfortable killing the enemy—
unless they develop love for their comrades and think in terms of defending
their loved ones. But cancer patients often have had lifelong dif ficulty in loving
themselves enough to feel the same way about self-defense. Thus some
patients do well seeing their white blood cells as sharks or polar bears, but
many do not. Some of the most successful kinds of visualization in ECaP
have been images of tumors as food, being eaten by white cells disguised as
Pac-Men or some such benevolent consumer. Just as healers in primitive
tribes tell people to utilize power animals, I suggest that patients use similar
animated symbols. One child saw his cancer as cat food and immune cells
as white pussycats. Another patient visualized birds and birdseed. One lady
who had oat-cell cancer pictured mares and does eating her oats. Seeing the
cancer as being eaten can mean “This tumor will nourish me and help me
get well. ” This kind of picture is truer to the real nature of the white blood
cells and also of fers a framework for using the disease as psychological
food for one’ s own growth. Another comfortable image is seeing the disease
as a delinquent, or misbehaving child or body part. Through treatment and
discipline the abnormal part or disease is returned to normal, mature
function. For guided visualization techniques, see the Appendix. OceanofPDF. com7
You cannot teach a man anything. Y ou can only help him to find it within
himself. —G ALILEO
OceanofPDF. comImages in Disease and Healing
I began working with imagery and cancer using the approach developed by
the Simontons and specifically outlined by their co-workers Jeanne
Achterber g and Frank Lawlis in Imagery of Cancer  (now expanded and
titled Imagery of Disease ). Using these techniques, I, too, found consistent
differences between the images of patients who would do well compared
with those who would do poorly. The dif ferences showed up in such
pictorial elements as the bulk of the cancer, the aggressiveness of white
blood cells, and the ways in which treatment was symbolized. I had used this method for a year in a rather mechanical way to try to
direct patients toward healing. Then, in the fall of 1979, I participated in a
Life-Death Transition workshop run by Elisabeth Kübler -Ross. The
drawings I made as part of that workshop (see example in insert following
page 1 16) helped me reach a deeper understanding of the powerful
relationship between one’ s unconscious and one’ s emotional life. These techniques for using drawings to explore the unconscious have
been developed over many decades by Carl Jung’ s student Susan Bach, and
by Gregg Furth and others. I learned them from Dr. Kübler -Ross, and as I
applied them in my practice, I saw that there were patterns of color
symbolism and that time sequences of past, present, and future were often
revealed. However, I saw that the symbol associations were often as
complex and revealing as dreams. Back in 1933, Jung interpreted the following dream sub mitted to him by
a doctor who provided no other information about the patient:
 
Someone beside me kept asking me something about oiling some
machinery. Milk was suggested as the best lubricant. Apparently I thought
that oozy slime was preferable. Then, a pond was drained and amid the
slime there were two extinct animals. One was a minute mastodon. I for got
what the other one was. Jung correctly diagnosed a damming-up of cerebrospinal fluid probably
due to a tumor. His interpretation was based on the facts that the Latin word
for phlegm, one kind of bodily “slime,” is pituita, and that “mastodon”
derives from two Greek words meaning “breast” and “teeth. ” He deducedthat the mastodon image referred to the mammillary bodies, breast-shaped
structures lying at the bottom of the third ventricle, a “pond” of
cerebrospinal fluid at the base of the brain. The details of Jung’ s interpretation are brilliantly recaptured by UCLA
research psychologist Russell Lockhart in his article “Cancer in Myth and
Dream. ” When asked how he had arrived at the correct conclusion, Jung
himself only replied:
 
…why I must take that dream as an or ganic symptom would start such an
argument that you would accuse me of the most terrible
obscurantism…. When I speak of archetypal patterns those of you who are
aware of these things understand, but if you are not you think, “This fellow
is absolutely crazy because he talks of mastodons and their dif ference from
snakes and horses. ” I should have to give you a course of about four
semesters about symbology first so that you could appreciate what I said. As Lockhart concluded, “Bodily or gans and processes have the capacity
to stimulate the production of psychic images, meaningfully related to the
type of physical disturbance and its location. ” This probably comes about
by means of electrical and/or chemical messages from the diseased part of
the body to the brain, which are interpreted by the mind as images. Just as a
salamander cannot grow a new limb if the nerves to it have been cut, so we
cannot receive these messages if the nervous system is damaged or if our
minds are closed to conscious communication with psyche and soma. As you can see, a great deal of knowledge about language and
mythology is often necessary to interpret dreams correctly. Like Jung, I
believe that the mind has available to it the experience of all previous life. This is why people sometimes dream in languages consciously unknown to
them, or in a universal language of symbols whose meanings they do not
know when awake. Drawings are easier to interpret, because the symbolism
is generally simpler, more closely related to everyday life, and can be
directed to a specific theme. I ask my patients to draw themselves, their treatment, their disease, and
their white cells eliminating the disease. To elicit undirected material from
the unconscious, I ask each patient for at least one additional drawing of a
scene of his or her own choosing. Depending on what areas of conflictexist, I may also ask them to draw themselves at work, at home with their
family, in the operating room, and so on. One of the conflicts I most often see concerns the patient’ s attitude
toward treatment. On a conscious or intellectual level the patient is often
saying, “This treatment is good for me,” yet unconsciously feeling, “This is
poison. ” In such a case, there is only one way out: if the patient reacts as
though poisoned, treatment must be stopped. However, once a drawing
reveals a patient’ s resistance to treatment, that attitude can be changed. It
can be made conscious and dealt with. It requires the visualization of
successful therapy, a reprogramming at an unconscious level. I discuss the drawings with each patient, sometimes for hours, before
the first ECaP  session or as part of the consultation before sur gery. The
drawings are a wonderful way to get people to open up and talk about
things they would otherwise conceal. After all, they have made the picture,
and the conflicts and attitudes it represents are now there on paper for both
of us to see. Furthermore, it doesn’ t matter how many of my lectures a
patient has attended, or how much he or she knows about the picture-
drawing technique. The unconscious always knows more symbols and finds
new ways of revealing something that consciousness has concealed. Susan Bach has worked with this approach for over thirty years, much
of that time in children’ s hospitals where the use of drawings was
encouraged. She has found specific illnesses reflected in a typical, recurrent
way. She writes:
 
We may comprehend that the human being can and does convey,
through these wordless communications and in his own idiom, both his
somatic and his psychological condition. Somatically, such pictures may
point to events in the past relevant to anamnesis [recall], early diagnosis,
and prognosis. Psychologically, we may see what goes on and has been
going on deep in the mind—for instance, past traumas—and how the
drawing can help him to express his hopes, fear, and forebodings. Moreover, these pictures can build a bridge between doctor and patient, the
family, and the surrounding world. Indeed, their meaning and what it
implies could guide the healing profession to assist especially the critically
ill patient in living as near to his essential being as possible, whether in
recovery or before his life’ s circle closes. Finally, we may ask how it could be that spontaneous pictures reflect, as
dreams do, the total situation of the human person. I have come to see, in
decades of clinical work, that through the imagery of spontaneous pictures
and of dreams something shines through, which I have called “inner
knowingness. ” Thus a new dimension may be opening before us. In her own way, psychologist Joan Kellogg has shown that patient
drawings of mandalas, an ancient Indian type of circular symbolic image
representing wholeness or one’ s whole life, can reveal much about the
unconscious life of the mind. The person fills in a circular outline with
colored geometric designs or pictures, which are then interpreted in a
dialogue with the healer or therapist. For examples of drawings by patients, see the insert following page 1 16. They have been chosen to illustrate some of the things this technique can
reveal. I have made no attempt to give a complete interpretation of each
picture. Nor have I tried to teach the art of interpretation itself, which would
require an entire book.
Yes, as your concentration improves, you can do meditation and visualization anywhere, even on a subway.
According to the text, can you do meditation and visualization anywhere, including on a subway?
The development of one's imagination.
What is the most important requirement for effective visualization?
The image must be chosen by the individual, and it must be an image that the person can see in their mind's eye as clearly as something seen by the physical eyes.
What is the key to the success of the visualization technique, according to the author?
The author believes that the doctor should not force their own beliefs on the patient, but rather help the patient find their own spiritual beliefs.
What is the author's view on the role of the doctor in the healing process?
The author does not assume that everyone will be comfortable with the idea of attacking and killing cancer, and instead suggests using benevolent and nurturing symbols, such as sharks or polar bears, or seeing the disease as food being eaten by white blood cells.
What is the main difference between the approach of the author and the Simontons?