Holistic Treatment of Cancer

A. Evidence is growing that some cancers may be healed by individuals themselves.

B. Evidence that meditation, relaxation, and other alternative medicine is helpful in treating cancer.

C. Examples: prostate cancers and an abnormal Pap smears that have healed themselves.

II. The Power of the Individual to heal himself

B. Louise Hay, Sir William Osler, George Solomon

C. Women who confront breast cancer have better survival rates

D. Fighting spirit is important for treatment

A. Opposite results found--more patients on alternative treatments died

B. Critics of Bristol method--citing vegetarian diet

C. Pros and cons of alternative treatment, i.e. shark cartilage, change of diet.

D. Reasons for opposite results in Bristol

Cancer and other serious diseases are usually treated with surgery or powerful drugs, but some new studies suggest that people heal themselves and that monitoring often is all that is needed (Podolsky and Rubin 64). While no one is suggesting that sick people stay away from doctors' offices, evidence is growing that for a number of conditions, high-cost specialty care often makes no difference in the long run and may even hurt more than he

. . .
ce as long. Forty months after the study began, Spiegel found that all the women in the control group were dead and that one-third of the support group women were still alive. Suddenly Spiegel realized that "happy thoughts" may help people heal, and negative thoughts may make people more prone to illness. Indeed, there have been many books on the subject detailing the different negative thoughts that lead to specific illnesses. For example, Louise Hay, whose book You Can Heal Your Life analyzed cancer as stemming from the feeling of resentment and of deep hurt (Stein 29). Furthermore, most of the world's traditional healing systems--from the practice of Ayuveda in ancient India to the Taoist teachings of China--have taught that states of mind can affect states of health. At the turn of the century, Sir William Osler--considered the father of modern medicine--declared that the treatment of tuberculosis depended more on what was going on in a patient's mind than in his body (Jaret 88). In the 1960s, psychiatrist George Solomon, then at Stanford University, asserted that the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis occurred more often and with greater severity in women who were passive, self-effacing, and unable to express their ange
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Approximate Word count = 1861
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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