The Cancer Personality: Who Gets Cancer?

My hypnotherapist, Dr Chong emailed me a link to this intertesting article. If you like to read it immediately, you can find it here.

Have you ever wondered if cancer patients have some form of common traits? If we know what these traits are and if you find yourself fitting into the description, then you can do something before cancer comes. Prevention is better than cure.

I have also read some books that attemps to provide some of the traits of cancer patients and I think the traits provided in this article seems more plausible. Due to the length of the article, it will appear into four or five parts.

Part 1
W. Douglas Brodie, MD: In dealing with many thousands of cancer patients over the past 28 years, it has been my observation that there are certain personality traits present in the cancer-susceptible individual. These traits are as follows:

1. Being highly conscientious, caring, dutiful, responsible, hard-working, and usually of above average intelligence.

2. Exhibits a strong tendency toward carrying other people's burdens and toward taking on extra obligations, and often "worrying for others."

3. Having a deep-seated need to make others happy. Being a "people pleaser" with a great need for approval.

4. Often lacking closeness with one or both parents, which sometimes, later in life, results in lack of closeness with spouse or others who would normally be close.

5. Harbours long-suppressed toxic emotions, such as anger, resentment and/or hostility. The cancer-susceptible individual typically internalizes such emotions and has great difficulty expressing them.

6. Reacts adversely to stress, and often becomes unable to cope adequately with such stress. Usually experiences an especially damaging event about 2 years before the onset of detectable cancer. The patient is not able to cope with this traumatic event or series of events, which comes as a "last straw" on top of years of suppressed reactions to stress.

7. Has an inability to resolve deep-seated emotional problems and conflicts, usually beginning in childhood, often even being unaware of their presence.

Typical of the cancer-susceptible personality, as noted above, is the long-standing tendency to suppress "toxic emotions", particularly anger. Usually beginning in childhood, this individual has held in their hostility and other unacceptable emotions. More often than not, this feature of the affected personality has its origins in feelings of rejection by one or both parents. Whether these feelings of rejection are justified or not, the individual perceives this rejection as real, and this results in a lack of closeness with the "rejecting" parent, followed later in life by a lack of closeness with spouses and others with whom close relationships
would normally develop. Those at the higher risk for cancer tend to develop feelings of loneliness as a result of their having been deprived of affection and acceptance earlier in life, even if this is only their perception. They have a tremendous need for approval and acceptance, and develop a very high sensitivity to the needs of others while suppressing their own emotional needs.

They become the "caretakers" of the world, showing great compassion and caring for others, and will go out of their way to look after others. They are very reluctant to accept help from others, fearing that it may jeopardize their role as the caretaker. Throughout their childhood they have been typically taught "not to be selfish", and they take this to heart as a major lifetime objective. All of this is highly commendable in our culture, but must be somehow modified in the case of the cancer patient. A distinction needs to be made here between the "care-giving" and the "care-taking" personality. There is nothing wrong with care-giving, of course,
but the problem arises when the susceptible individual derives their entire worth, value and identity from their role as "caretaker". If this very important shift cannot be made, the patient is stuck in this role, and the susceptibility to cancer greatly increases.

As already stated, a consistent feature of those who are susceptible to cancer appears to be that they "suffer in silence", and bear their burdens without complaint. These burdens of their own as well as the burdens of others weigh heavily upon these people through a lifetime of emotional suppression. The carefree extrovert, on the other hand, seems to be far less vulnerable to cancer than the caring introvert described above.

How one reacts to stress appears to be a major factor in the larger number of contributing causes of cancer. Most cancer patients have experienced a highly stressful event, usually about 2 years prior to the onset of detectable disease. This traumatic event is often beyond the patient's control, such as the loss of a loved one, loss of a business, job, home, or some other major disaster. The typical cancer personality has lost the ability to cope with these extreme events, because his/her coping mechanism lies in his/her ability to control the environment. When this control is lost, the patient has no other way to cope.

Major stress causes suppression of the immune system, and does so more verwhelmingly in the cancer-susceptible individual than in others. Thus personal tragedies and excessive levels of stress appear to combine with the underlying personality described above to bring on the immune deficiency which allows cancer to thrive.

To read Part 2, click here.