BERNIE of WORDS The POWER A
s doctors we are not trained to communicate and under- stand the power of our words as they relate to a patient’s ability and desire to survive. It is also not only doctors but
all the authority figures in our patients’ lives that affect the out- come of their disease and their ability to survive. Parents, teach- ers, clergy and physicians change lives with their words. It is hyp- notic for a child or patient to hear an authority figure’s words. As I am always sharing, wordswordswords can become swordsword- swords and we can kill or cure with either words or swords. Up to the age of six a child’s brain wave pattern is similar to
that of a hypnotized individual. To quote a woman, whose moth- er only gave her failure messages and dressed her in dark colors, and who as an adult has more trouble with her mother’s words than she does with cancer, “My mother’s words were eating away at me and maybe gave me cancer.” We know from recent studies that loneliness affects the genes that control the immune system. So as doctors we need to ask the right questions and know what a patient has experienced and is experiencing in their lives. Can you imagine treating Christopher Reeve’s wife for cancer without knowing her family history? I recently received two emails; one from a woman who had
a recurrence of her cancer and has decided to not undergo che- motherapy again. Her doctor said, “Then you might as well go home and commit suicide.” The other email came from a woman who asked her doctor if they could become a team as she had just finished reading my book. He told her no and that he was the doctor and in charge of her care. She packed her belongings and walked out of the hospital and has found a caring oncologist to work with. She is a survivor and not a submissive sufferer, or from the doctor’s perspective, a so called good patient.
We need to listen to our patients’ words and treat their expe-
riences. Helen Keller said it very well when she said, “Deafness is darker by far than blindness.” We also need to understand that patients do not live a disease, they live an experience. We should ask how a patient would describe their experience and then treat them accordingly. The words they use, like draining, failure, de- nial, pressure, gift and wake up call are always about what is hap- pening in their life. So we can help them to heal their lives and improve the chances of curing their disease. I did a great deal of children’s surgery. I meet many of these
children today, as young adults, and am amazed at how vivid their memories are. It is obvious how important this event was to them and the details they recall. I learned how powerful my words were when I began to notice children falling asleep as we wheeled them into the operating room. One boy turned onto his stomach and fell asleep as we entered the O.R. I turned him over on the operating table and he said, “What are you doing? You told me I would go to sleep in the operating room and I sleep on my stomach.” I told him I needed to operate on his stomach to get to his appendix, so we reached a compromise. I would rub an alcohol sponge on a child’s arm and tell them
it would numb their skin. A third of the children would not feel the needle and ask why other doctors didn’t do that. I called it de- ceiving people into health. Give someone who has faith in you a placebo and call it a hair growing pill, anti-nausea pill or whatev- er and you will be amazed at how many respond to your therapy. Years ago psychologist Bruno Klopfer was involved with a
cancer patient who was participating in a study to determine the effectiveness of Krebiozen. His patient responded dramatically until the initial report came out saying it didn’t seem effective.
By Bernie Siegel, MD
6 Essential Living Maine ~ December 2014
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