2004.04.02: April 2, 2004: Headlines: COS - Central African Republic: Medicine: Psychology: Cancer: Baltimore Times: Central African Republic RPCV Evangeline Wheeler writes: The Psychology of Cancer
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2004.04.02: April 2, 2004: Headlines: COS - Central African Republic: Medicine: Psychology: Cancer: Baltimore Times: Central African Republic RPCV Evangeline Wheeler writes: The Psychology of Cancer
Central African Republic RPCV Evangeline Wheeler writes: The Psychology of Cancer
"Do certain personality traits, a history of adverse childhood experiences, or a particular way of coping with stress make a person more likely to get cancer and to die from it? Conversely, do other personality or coping patterns protect people from getting cancer or help them survive it? People who rely heavily on denial and repression or are conflict avoidance as a way of coping are at greater risk. This style of coping is associated with an overall weakened immune system. There is empirical evidence that a hopeless/helpless coping style is associated with unfavorable disease outcome in patients with certain cancers. The converse, namely a link between an active, fighting spirit as a coping style and favorable disease outcome, is under-researched and less clear-cut."
Central African Republic RPCV Evangeline Wheeler writes: The Psychology of Cancer
Healthy Times:The Psychology of Cancer
by Evangeline A. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Baltimore Times
Originally posted 4/2/2004
Cancer is a serious disease caused by uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells, which form fast-growing malignant tumors. These tumors can spread around the body, causing pain by pressing against normal tissues and nerves and blocking the flow of fluids in the body. Growth has to be stopped before the tumors kill us by causing organ failure or hemorrhaging. Abnormal cells come from natural mutations or carcinogens, and sometimes the body will take care of them itself, and other times the body gets overwhelmed and cancer takes over. African Americans have the highest overall rates of cancer, caused largely by the very high incidence of lung and prostate cancer among our men.
As scientists try to puzzle out the causes of cancer, some of them have been driven to think about the relationship between the mind and physical illness. Psychologists have been unraveling, over the past few decades, the mysteries of the mind-immune-cancer connection. Do psychiatric disorders, personality and emotional stress, somehow, contribute to the progress of cancer? Could psychotherapy, counseling, or mutual support groups help to preserve or prolong lives threatened by cancer?
This addresses the importance of psychoneuroimmunology in understanding the role of psychological factors in physical illness. Although still early in its development, research suggests a role of psychological factors in autoimmune diseases. Evidence for effects of stress, depression and repression/denial on onset and progression of cancer is inconclusive, possibly owing to methodological limitations inherent in studying such a complex illness, or because psychological influences are not of the magnitude or type necessary to alter the body’s response to cancerous growth.
How might stress lead to cancer? Stress weakens the immune system, which thereby decreases the body’s ability to detect and kill abnormal cells. Research with both humans and rats shows that stressful events — like divorce in humans and uncontrollable electrical shock in rats — reduced the number of immune cells in the blood. Stress may also reduce the body’s ability to fix DNA errors, meaning that random errors that would be normally found and repaired by the body are allowed to remain in the body and wreak havoc. Researchers already know that stress suppresses the body’s ability to protect itself.
Do certain personality traits, a history of adverse childhood experiences, or a particular way of coping with stress make a person more likely to get cancer and to die from it? Conversely, do other personality or coping patterns protect people from getting cancer or help them survive it? People who rely heavily on denial and repression or are conflict avoidance as a way of coping are at greater risk. This style of coping is associated with an overall weakened immune system. There is empirical evidence that a hopeless/helpless coping style is associated with unfavorable disease outcome in patients with certain cancers. The converse, namely a link between an active, fighting spirit as a coping style and favorable disease outcome, is under-researched and less clear-cut.
How could social support versus isolation affect your health? The first and obvious explanation is that when you have someone who cares about you, you are more likely to get to the doctor when you need to, pay more attention to good diet and avoid less healthy habits. It may be as simple as that. When you have someone with whom you can share the burden of your illness, it seems less threatening and you feel a greater sense of control and confidence than if you were alone. In one well-known study, for example, patients with advanced breast cancer, who underwent group therapy, lived longer than those who did not. While we don’t know how social ties are translated into an effect on survival, the evidence that they can have an effect at all, seems clear and compelling enough to make researchers want to study them more.
Psychological treatment has indirect effects on physical health as well. Take the nausea and vomiting that often accompany chemotherapy, for example. For some, these side effects can be severe enough to make them reject further treatment efforts. Psychologists can teach people relaxation exercises, meditation, self-hypnosis, imagery or other skills that can effectively relieve nausea without the side effects of drugs.
Coping skills that psychologists teach may actually boost the immune system’s strength. Research suggests that patients who ask questions and are assertive with their physicians have better health outcomes than patients who passively accept proposed treatment regimens. The result is an enhanced understanding of the disease and its treatment and a greater willingness to do what needs to be done to get well again.
When this story was posted in August 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Baltimore Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Central African Republic; Medicine; Psychology; Cancer
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