The Cancer Personality

Carcinogenic Personality Profile - Do you fit the Carcinogenic Personality Profile? --- Alexander Mostovoy, H.D., D.H.M.S.

Very few words strike fear into the hearts and minds of people as does the word "cancer". Just hearing the word produces an attack of anxiety in most people. No wonder most of us have this reaction; we are constantly being inundated with information about cancer.

Cancer statistics and new 'breakthrough' discoveries are in the media every day. Curiously, the people who are the most susceptible to this disease are the ones who feel that they are bombarded with information regarding cancer. That in itself feeds their anxiety even more. They live a life of fear. For them, it is not a question of whether or not they'll get cancer it is just a matter of when. This is a horrible way to live; it is a life of fear.

Cancer is a multifactorial disease. It is not just an isolated tumor floating like an iceberg in a vast ocean. In cancer, there is a whole interplay of many activities. Cancer is usually slow to progress and involves many contributing factors, such as diet, heredity, environment, lifestyle, personality and attitude.

It is this cancer personality that I would like to bring to the reader's attention. My hope is not only to alert the reader, but also to encourage them to take the appropriate steps for changes that will lead to a healthier life and well being. Years ago when I started describing this "carcinogenic personality profile" I was met with a lot of resistance. Many held a position that there is no such thing. People would accept the notion that a type-A personality would lead to a higher risk of heart disease, but a type-C personality? Interestingly enough, I find this "type-C" or "carcinogenic personality profile" pattern very common in my practice.

In general terms, the carcinogenic personality profile can be summed up as follows:

Loss / Grief (relationship, status, etc.)
Unfulfilled passion
Unworthiness
Avoidance of conflict
Tension in parental relationship

Loss / Grief - This could be a great shock when one loses a spouse, child, friend, Grief of course is a normal process and is part of everyone's life. However, many fall prey to this destructive emotion only to realize years later how vulnerable they are and how easy it is to cross that line of no return. Loss of status, financial or otherwise could be just as devastating as a loss of a relationship.

Unfulfilled Passion - In his work as a psychologist in a New York City cancer hospital for over 30 years, Dr. Lawrence LeShan observed a common thread amongst cancer patients. The common thread was unfulfilled passion that had been suppressed for many years. For example, a child who wanted to learn the piano, but couldn't because either their parents could not afford those piano lessons, or other priorities took precedence over theirs. This pattern of suppression would repeat itself over their lifetime. Oddly enough, studying piano later in life, or fulfilling a previously unfulfilled passion has an amazing curative effect.

Unworthiness - The personality predisposed to cancer is usually what I would call 'nice', a 'kind soul', or 'other-centered' someone who would put the needs of others before their own.

Avoidance of Conflict - These people avoid conflict and are unable to express hostility in their own defense. These people prefer order and avoid arguments, as arguments are unpredictable. Order to them means control, whereas arguments or expressions of hostility means loss of control. Many times I would walk into someone's house and move a small object on the table, and I could feel it and even see in their eyes that this makes them very uncomfortable. They are very tidy people, they are always striving for perfection; their dinner parties have to be perfect, their decor elegant, and their dress immaculate. (Also known as EAST Type personalities in the Personality Compass Test)

Of course this is a compensation mechanism for their feelings of unworthiness and self-dislike. They are usually nature lovers, artistic, social activists who are particularly pained over environmental issues. People with an artistic streak usually have an appreciation for the elegant. They are achievers with a tendency to overdo and overwork. It is hard for them to relax, and instead they do things to exhaustion and crash. Many of these individuals come from a parental relationship where, in order to get affection as a child they must achieve ie: please the parent; thus they become the best in their class, orderly, submissive. This behavior in turn creates friction, since from an early age their desires are suppressed even though most of them have a very passionate nature that is unfulfilled.

Most Carcinogenic personality profiles are very punctual. They are never late for their appointments. As a matter of fact I noticed that most of them would arrive well ahead of time to avoid the possibility of being late and thus displeasing someone. Being late creates a lot of anticipatory anxiety in them and brings forth the possibility of losing control.

The greatest fears of a carcinogenic personality are: the fear of getting cancer, crawling creatures, most commonly spiders, not being accepted by others, and not being liked. Regarding the fear of cancer, I believe that subconsciously, the patient always knows what is going to get them in the end. That is why it is so important for the physician to carefully listen to, and pay attention to their fears since it really is the patient that provides the answers and the solution to their problems. Of course, the greater the fear, the greater the susceptibility to this disease. The reverse is also true with many patients as they get the appropriate cancer treatment their fear subsides and their resistance to this disease increases.

Depression - When Carcinogenic personalities sink deep into their depressions, as they quite often do, it brings their feeling of unworthiness forth such that they see nothing positive about themselves or their lives. Many would resort to anti-depressants early in life. Suicidal feelings are common amongst these people and should be taken seriously. I have come across many young carcinogenic personalities who tell their parents that they want to die. Because of their impressionability, frequent positive contact with a therapist can help enormously during depressive episodes. Very often these people have never given themselves the opportunity to unburden themselves with a therapist. When they do, they feel greatly relieved and begin to see themselves more objectively which in itself leads to more self-respect.

Self Expression and Creativity - Self-expression is a key for these individuals and it is this very struggle for individualization and creativity that often leads to the discovery of their artistic talents. Their intuition often leads to an expression of an inner world. Music and painting are creative avenues that are used as a means of self-expressing the pain they have endured.

Pre-Cancer States and Treatment - Cancer is curable if diagnosed early. Since the consistency in cure the of advanced cancer remains elusive, it is desirable to identify and treat pre-cancer diseases. A considerable focus worldwide is now given to prophylactic homeopathic treatment and the treatment of pre-cancer states. Since we are all a combination of body, mind and spirit, it is of great importance to make sure that the psycho-emotional component be addressed early enough thus preventing the need for a full blown disease and its subsequent tedious cure. For over 200 years homeopathic medicine has been able to recognize and address people's susceptibilities to different diseases which in turn has proven to be a very effective way of averting them.

http://www.drmostovoy.com/carcinogenic_personality_profile.htm

German doctor Ryke Geerd HAMER, in the habilitation script he presented at [Germany's] Tübingen University in October 1981, Dr. HAMER summarized his research with this statement: "I searched for cancer in the cell and I have found it in the form of a wrong coding in the brain."

From his personal experience--he himself has had a cancer-and from those patients he took care of in many university clinics, Dr. HAMER established over the years that there is always a definite syndrome at the source of cancer, and not just a kind of stress. It requires a strong stimulus, a brutal psychic trauma, which hits the patient as a major event in his life, an acute dramatic conflict, lived in a complete psychic isolation.

The Body-Mind Connection

Medical doctor and cancer surgeon Ryke Geerd Hamer has examined 20,000 cancer patients with all types of cancer. Dr. Hamer has come up with some revolutionary information. X-rays taken of the brain by Dr. Hamer showed in all cases a "dark shadow" somewhere in the brain. These dark spots would be in exactly the same place in the brain for the same types of cancer. There was also a 100% correlation between the dark spot in the brain, the location of the cancer and the specific type of unresolved conflict.

On the basis of these findings, Dr. Hamer suggests that when we are in a stressful conflict that is not resolved, the emotional reflex centre in the brain which corresponds to the experienced emotion (e.g., anger, frustration or grief), will slowly break down. Each of these emotion centres are connected to a specific organ. When a centre breaks down, it will start sending wrong information to the organ it controls, resulting in the formation of deformed cells in the tissues: cancer cells.

Dr. Hamer started including psychotherapy as an important part of the healing process and found that when the specific conflict was resolved, the cancer immediately stopped growing at a cellular level. The dark spot in the brain started to disappear. X-rays of the brain now showed a healing edema around the damaged emotional centre as the brain tissue began to repair the afflicted point. There was once again normal communication between brain and body. A similar healing edema could also be seen around the now inactive cancer tissue. Eventually, the cancer would become encapsulated, discharged or dealt with by the natural action of the body. Diseased tissue would disappear and normal tissue would then again appear. Dr. Bernie Siegel on the healing power of feelings and consciousness: "Those who were extremely satisfied with their lives had one-tenth the rate of serious illness and death suffered by their thoroughly dissatisfied peers even after the effects of alcohol, tobacco, obesity, and ancestral longevity were statistically eliminated."

The two best-known mental and emotional factors that adversely affect health are stress and grief, especially if the latter is accompanied by loneliness. According to Larry Dossey, grief, especially when accompanied by loneliness, can also adversely affect the immune system. In a 1977 study of the immune systems of widowed people in Sydney, Australia, researchers found that the bereaved showed significantly less immune activity than the control group.

Please see our section on Emotional Healing for further information.