Emotional responses and behaviours have at least as much ability to contribute to cancer as physical factors. While reviewing lifestyle choices and environmental influences is important, a complex illness like cancer often has psycho-emotional roots which need to be addressed before cancer can be healed.
Not so long ago, the main causes of cancer used to be limited to age and DNA damage.[i] This message reinforced the belief that cancers happen randomly and that there is nothing we can do to prevent or delay it. Decades later, after multiple studies showed that a significant percentage of cancers are due to lifestyle choices, healthcare systems focused on spreading awareness of things people can do themselves to reduce their chances of getting cancer.
Only 5–10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90–95% have their roots in the environment and lifestyle.
– “Cancer is a preventable disease that requires major lifestyle changes”[ii]
Top 10 avoidable cancer risk factors, in order of significance, are as follows:
cigarette smoking
being overweight
UV radiation
occupational exposures to carcinogens
infections
excessive alcohol consumption
poor diet
insufficient physical activity
environmental pollution, and
breastfeeding each child for less than 6 months.
While each of these factors is important, these statistics do not explain why cancer affects the young and healthy as well. Cancers diagnosed at a young age show that cancer factors are not limited to the physical environment, just like human body does not function in isolation from the mind. Our physical health is a reflection of what happens in our psyche, in our work, in our relationships, and in our home. And yet, none of these factors appear on medical scans or standard medical questionnaires.
In this article:
Emotional Root 1: Chronic Stress
Cancer is caused by no single factor – physical, emotional, or otherwise. However, chronic stress (as opposed to acute stress) alone can damage every aspect of our being as it increases inflammation and inhibits the immune system. We cannot stop stressful life events from happening to us, but we can manage our response to them. To learn more about how chronic stress can contribute to cancer, read my article Why Your Body Can’t Heal While You Are Stressed: Link Between Stress and Cancer?
Dr Hans Selye, the “father of stress research”, demonstrated back in 1920s that emotional responses can suppress the body’s natural defences and thus make a person susceptible to a chronic disease. Despite the fact that even mainstream medical research has highlighted the link between chronic stress and cancer by now,[iv] medical doctors – and even the most interested party, patients – are slow at recognising the importance of stress management and coping skills in healing from cancer.
Emotional Root 2: Cancer Personality
Amongst infinite psychological patterns and behaviours in cancer patients studied by those oncologists who advanced their research beyond physical symptoms and medical scans and looked into the possible correlation between psychological factors and chronic illness, one personality configuration stood out. Medical literature refers to the emotional pattern claimed to be associated with cancer as Type C personality, or cancer-prone personality.[v]
In other words, these personality traits are more likely to be found amongst people who developed cancer rather than in those who remain cancer-free.
Three emotional responses most commonly associated with the cancer personality include:
1. Consistently repressing emotions, particularly anger.
Extensive research shows that cancer patients appear to have extremely low anger levels, suggesting a widespread pattern of restraining anger.[vi]
There is evidence to show that suppressed anger can be a precursor to the development of cancer, and also a factor in its progression after diagnosis.
– “Anger and cancer: an analysis of the linkages”[vi]
Dr Gabor Maté, one of the world’s leading researchers on the relationship between psychological trauma and chronic illness, defines repression as dissociating emotions from awareness and relegating them to the unconscious realm.[vii] The healthy alternative is to feel the emotion, acknowledge it, try to name it, and ask yourself where it might be coming from.
2. Being unable to express one's wishes or defend one's own needs, inability to say no, and having no clear personal boundaries.
The behaviour when people cannot help but sacrifice their own needs for someone else’s well-being and feel that it is wrong to prioritise their own interests might serve other values, but in the context of cancer, it trains their mind and body to consistently suppress their own will (to survive) in order to preserve something that they perceive to be more important even than their life (e.g. family’s opinion and support, doctor’s recommendations and prognosis). This strategy is similar to a victim mentality which can breed emotions like anger, resentment, and powerlessness, all of which are associated with cancer.[v],[viii]
Closely related to this pattern, researchers observed avoidance of conflicts and exaggerated pleasantness. A diplomatic personality has a well-developed capability of prioritising someone else’s wishes over their own.
When we have been prevented from learning how to say no, our bodies may end up saying it for us.
– “When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress”, Dr Gabor Maté
3. Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, perceiving that nothing can be resolved by one's own actions.
It might be the doctors’ verdict, the fact that your illness is inherited, or damning statistics – if you look for it, you can always find a “realistic” fact that would make all your efforts appear useless in the face of something bigger. Such a fact can also provide what might seem as a reasonable excuse to stop fighting because you believe that you have no chance of winning this battle anyway.
Other characteristics identified as being part of the cancer personality are passiveness, submissiveness to authorities, uncritical adjustment to others, lack of self-control in stressful situations, helplessness in the face of adversities, excessive patience and strong defence mechanisms.[v]
Of striking note, having these personality traits does not spark cancer: they can merely create conditions for cancer to develop faster.
Emotional Root 3: Negative Emotions
Emotions affect our biology. Poorly managed emotions, inadequate coping styles and negative beliefs about one's health can also inhibit the immune system and cause hormonal imbalances, which can result in the body being unable to maintain homeostasis and defend itself against foreign invaders, such as cancerous cells.
All illness, if not psychosomatic in foundation, has a definite psychosomatic component.
– “Molecules of emotion: the science behind mind-body medicine”, Dr Candace B. Pert [ix]
Human bodies carry cancer cells constantly, at any point of time, but they are well equipped with natural defence and self-healing mechanisms. This means that if cancer did occur, those mechanisms have failed.
Dr Carl Simonton, a pioneer of the psychosocial oncology movement, showed that there is a clear link between emotional states and cancer, and dedicated his team’s efforts to investigating which characteristics are the most common amongst cancer patients and why.[x]
Some of the negative emotions most capable of blocking healing are fear (including the fear of death), unresolved anger, resentment, and despair.[x],[xii],[xiii]
It is important to note that the emotions described here are those that were present before the onset of cancer – not the emotional response to the diagnosis or treatment.
When we experience negative feelings, our mind warns our body of a perceived threat. This starts off a series of physiological reactions including the release of stress hormones and the activation of the fight-or-flight response. If the body does not relax after the stress response was triggered to repair the physical damage caused to our body, the immune system cannot do its job and defend our body from illness.
In addition to the stress response, negative emotions can cause inflammation, and chronic inflammation can cause DNA damage and lead to cancer.[xi]
Emotional Root 4: Having No Reason to Live
In his book “You can fight for your life: emotional factors in the treatment of cancer”[xii], Dr LeShan reports his findings on the intensive psychotherapy that 70 of his terminal cancer patients underwent in 22 years. Apart from the emotional states mentioned above, he noticed that the patients who survived despite their prognosis had a sense of purpose in life. In fact, Dr LeShan identified losing a raison-d’être – and not finding a new one – as the first common clue across the questionnaires of his patients.
The individual whose hopes for his own full rich life are sufficiently high to enable him to deal with temporary setbacks appears to be most resistant to cancer.
– “You can fight for your life: emotional factors in the treatment of cancer”, Dr LeShan
Dr Kelly Turner, author of the book “Radical Remission” identifies having strong reasons for living as one of the nine key factors that she observed in cancer patients who defied their prognosis and healed “against all odds”[xiii]. She comments that having a purpose in life, scientifically, invites powerful positive emotions which release hormones into the bloodstream which in turn activate the immune system (as shown in the Emotion and Immunity chart above), while in esoteric terms, being excited about living lets into our bodies the flow of chi, or prana, or life force that keeps us alive – despite illness.
In conclusion, while diet and exercise are essential, if you consistently make healthy choices for your body but your scans do not reflect your efforts, then it might be a signal that other factors might have contributed to your illness.
References
[i] American Cancer Society https://www.cancer.org/treatment/understanding-your-diagnosis/history-of-cancer/modern-knowledge-and-cancer-causes.html [ii] Anand, P., Kunnumakkara, A. B., Sundaram, C., Harikumar, K. B., Tharakan, S. T., Lai, O. S., Sung, B., & Aggarwal, B. B. (2008). Cancer is a preventable disease that requires major lifestyle changes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/ [iii] Cancer Research UK (2022) https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/risk/preventable-cancers#heading-Two [iv] Hong, H., Ji, M., & Lai, D. (2021). Chronic Stress Effects on Tumor: Pathway and Mechanism. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8720973/
[v] Rymarczyk, K., Turbacz, A., Strus, W., & Cieciuch, J. (2020). Type C Personality: Conceptual Refinement and Preliminary Operationalization. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7525034/ [vi] Thomas SP, Groer M, Davis M, Droppleman P, Mozingo J, Pierce M. Anger and cancer: an analysis of the linkages. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11037954/ [vii] Maté G. (2019). When the body says no: the cost of hidden stress. Vermilion. [viii] Sand L, Strang P, Milberg A. Dying cancer patients' experiences of powerlessness and helplessness. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18026998/ [ix] Pert C. B. OverDrive Inc & 3M Company. (2009). Molecules of emotion : the science behind mind-body medicine. Scribner.
[x] Simonton S. M. James L. & O. Carl Simonton M. D. (1984). Getting well again. Bantam Books.
[xi] National Cancer Institute https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/chronic-inflammation
[xii] LeShan L. (1977). You can fight for your life: emotional factors in the treatment of cancer. Thorsons.
[xiii] Turner K. A. (2014). Radical remission : surviving cancer against all odds (First). HarperOne.
Comments