Emotions and Cancer

By Jeannine Walston

A link between specific emotions and cancer has been observed for over 2,000 years. That includes respected cancer physicians from the 1700s until the early 1900s who identified specific emotions in many cancer patients. Some common emotions written about in physician records, textbooks, and journals are depression, despair, emotional loss, hopelessness, grief, and disappointment.

But in 1900, the psychosomatic viewpoint and practice changed as medicine evolved into anesthesia, surgery, radiation, and other medical treatments focused on local disease, without health care addressing the whole person.

Emotional Coping Styles and the Type C

Connections between emotions and cancer emerged again in cancer care. Since the 1950s, research studies on emotions and cancer have been conducted and published. The study results indicate that some cancer patients use specific emotional coping styles. If you have heard the term Type C personality, recognize that it’s an inaccurate term and perception of particular emotions in people with cancer. Cancer patients learning about emotions and cancer benefit from understanding that certain emotional behaviors are not a Type C personality but rather a way to cope with their situations and life experiences. Whether it’s young or old people, coping styles can change. Please know the following before exploring potential coping styles in people with cancer.

Coping styles are not considered the only cause of cancer in some patients. However, specific behavior patterns may be factors in cancer risk and ultimately recovery.
Coping styles generally develop unintentionally as a by-product of early conditioning. Learning about behavior patterns needs to be balanced with self-compassion, empowerment, and hope. Self-blame cannot be a part of the process.
Not everyone with cancer exhibits these coping styles associated with the disease.

Before explaining Type C coping styles, we will first define Type A. Maybe you have heard about Type A behavior being associated with heart disease. Type A behavior is generally self-centered, highly charged, competitive, and overflowing with anxiety, anger, and hostility.

Research indicates that cancer patients may exhibit Type C behavior as a coping style (not the Type C personality), which is the polar opposite of Type A. Type C behavior patterns are viewed as coping styles that may include the following.

Nonexpression of anger and lack of awareness of any feelings of anger, past or present.
No experiences or expressions of other “negative” emotions such as anxiety, fear, and sadness.
Patience, unassertiveness, cooperation, and appeasement in work, social, and family relationships, as well as compliance with external authorities.
Overly concerned with meeting the needs of others, insufficiently engaged in meeting their own needs, and often self-sacrificing to an extreme.
A tendency to feel some level of chronic hopelessness and helplessness.

Some research suggests that these coping styles may weaken the immune system and leave people more vulnerable to cancer progression.

Type C is considered more of a coping style than a Type C personality since these behavior patterns often develop as a survival strategy. Coping styles evolve, and individuals who are considered Type C can learn new behaviors. People can embody a variety of traits across the coping continuum, from Type A to Type B to Type C.

Benefits of Expressing Emotions

“My research has shown me that when emotions are expressed—which is to say that the biochemicals that are substrate of emotion are flowing freely—all systems are united and whole. When emotions are repressed, denied, not allowed to be whatever they may be, our network pathways get blocked, stopping the flow of the vital feel-good, unifying chemicals that run both our biology and our behavior.”
-Candace Pert, Ph.D., Molecules of Emotion

In The Type C Connection: The Mind-Body Link to Cancer and Your Health, Lydia Temoshok, Ph.D., and Henry Dreher offer perspectives on the association between emotions and health, as well as a portrait of emotional terrain in people with cancer.

“The word ’emotion’ comes from the Latin root meaning ‘to move.’ Threatening or disturbing circumstances cause us to be moved to fear, anger, or sadness, and these emotions involve complex chain reactions by our nervous and endocrine systems. If the feelings cannot be experienced, discharged, or properly managed, a biological imperative is blocked. The long-term consequence is mind-body imbalance.”

More about Healing through Emotions

The expression of positive and negative emotions is a consistent quality in survivors, according to Dr. Temoshok. Through transforming behaviors, she conveys that some people with cancer become “more expressive, assertive, and self-nurturing.” She wrote, “…a fundamental shift in their relationship to self and to the world—by deepening their awareness of inner needs and feelings and by expanding to make more genuine contact with others… (to create) healing of the split between the mind and body, and a remarkable improvement in emotional and physical health.”

Another strategy is to hug yourself. Provide gentle contact around your heart. Those forces can shift the body-mind connection into a calm state and bring other benefits.

To learn more about emotions and cancer with some clear ways to create greater joy and eliminate ‘shoulds’ in your thinking and actions in your life, explore Cancer As a Turning Point. Other potentially helpful information includes Movement, Breathing & Meditation for Cancer Patients, and much more, such as Spirituality Assessments, a series of questions to reflect, identify, and define essential factors.

For More Information

Getting Well Again by O. Carl Simonton, MD
Cancer As A Turning Point: A Handbook for People with Cancer, Their Families, and Health Professionals by Lawrence LeShan, PhD
The Type C Connection: The Mind-Body Link to Cancer and Your Health by Lydia Temoshok, Ph.D., and Henry Dreher
When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection by Gabor Mate, MD
Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine by Candace Pert, PhD
The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo

JEANNINE WALSTON

JEANNINE WALSTON

Heal the Whole

Heal the Whole