Prescription for Living
by Bernie Siegel, MD
Remarkable Recoveries
T
he reason that medicine has not explored the issue of self
Our bodies love us but if we
healing is that we either give credit to the treatment or refer
do not love them in return, they
to the healings as miracles or spontaneous remissions. But
turn on us. There are more sui-
a lot can be learned about survival behavior by talking to those
cides and serious illnesses on
patients who experienced “miracles”.
Mondays than on any other day
Psychologist Bruno Klopfer, back in the 1940’s, was given
of the week. That is no coincidence. Our relationships play an
24 personality profiles of cancer patients and correctly predicted
enormous part in making our lives meaningful and helping us to
19 times who would have a fast or slow growing cancer. In one
survive. As W. H. Auden wrote about cancer in the poem, Miss
case he couldn’t decide and his predictions were wrong four
Gee, a doctor says to his wife, “Cancer’s a funny thing. Childless
times. Yet when a patient enters a doctor’s office and is given a
women get it and men when they retire. It’s as if there had to be
diagnosis, he is not given a list of questions to determine his per-
an outlet for their foiled creative fire.” Jungian therapists call it
sonality profile or his likelihood of being a long-term survivor.
growth gone wrong.
Doctors are not trained to communicate with patients and
Women live longer than men with the same cancers. Mar-
so our words can kill or cure. Authority figures are hypnotic but
ried men live longer than single men with the same cancers.
some doctors can be hypnotic in a negative way, inducing side
Does that make it remarkable?
effects and sometimes an earlier death by referring to statistics
It is obvious from many studies that a reason for living also
and eliminating hope. Statistics do not apply to individuals and
relates to the will to live and survival. I hear men say, “I can’t
there is no false hope.
work anymore. What’s the point of living?” while their families
Psychiatrist George Solomon, when working with AIDS pa-
are sitting next to them. While women say, “I can’t die till you’re
tients early in the epidemic, came up with eight questions that
all married and out of the house.” She died of her cancer twenty
define an Immune Competent Personality. He said that from the
three years later when her ninth kid left home. She, like the men,
questions one could predict who would be a long term survi-
needed to live an authentic life and not just a role as the wage
vor.
earner or mother. Recent studies show how loneliness affects
Psychiatrist Caroline Thomas, at Johns Hopkins had medical
the genes that control immune function and can lead to cancer,
students fill out a personality profile and draw pictures of them-
infections and autoimmune diseases.
selves. From the profile and drawings she found a connection
I was involved in several cases of remarkable recoveries.
with diseases they developed later in life and could predict what
One was a woman who lived in North Carolina and was told
disease they were likely to get and the part of the body likely to
by her doctor that going to the hospital for chemotherapy was a
be involved from their drawings. Even she was surprised to find
waste of time and energy as she was going to die anyway of can-
a correlation with cancer too.
cer. Her niece was caring for my father-in-law at the time and
www.naturalnutmeg.com February 2010
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