Psychosocial corner
Phil Kerslake, lymphoma survivor and author of ‘Life, Happiness… and Cancer’ writes a regular column for LBF’s newsletter, Lymphoma Today. On this page we have listed his columns to date. Phil’s book is available for loan from the Leukaemia & Blood Foundation, contact 0800 15 10 15 or info@leukaemia.org.nz for more information.
Winter 2011
About being positive…
When a cancer patient announced at one of my recent public talks, “if one more person tells me to be positive I’ll slug them” – I understood where she was coming from.
Many patients can recount well-meaning folk imploring them to “just be positive” or suggesting “you’ll be fine – you’re a positive person.”
Those of us who have experienced cancer and its tortuous treatments know a reality that the positive attitude police don’t. Being unceasingly optimistic and positive while facing your mortality in the midst of nausea, fatigue, pain, worries and sadness is an unrealistic and unhealthy expectation.
Dr. Jimmie Holland, MD, a U.S. psychiatrist and psycho-oncology leader coined the term “the tyranny of positive thinking” to describe the approach of those who preach the mind-over-cancer mantra. She has rightfully acknowledged the tremendous pressure and unreasonable expectations it puts on people.
However, this does not mean that optimistic and hopeful outlooks can play no part in realising our recovery aspirations. I wrote in Life, Happiness… & Cancer: “Pioneers in mind-body-spirit medicine found, over a number of decades, that cancer patients who have a strong sense of their purpose and will to live tend to live longer than those whose prognosis is seemingly better but who display a greater apathy, depression and an attitude of giving up.”
There are coping and recovery-aiding benefits in acknowledging, exploring and expressing all the emotions that cancer and its treatments stir. The key is not to languish excessively in states such as depression, despondency, hopelessness or helplessness.
As yet, science provides no clear evidence that doing so will have a predictable effect on the behaviour of your disease one way or the other. But we do know it can result in you not participating meaningfully in problem-solving and decision-making about matters that will impact your life.
And we know that you may be less likely to communicate productively with your medical team and those who care for you, moping passively instead, isolated from the valuable practical and moral support that is there for you. The result of a prolonged negative state can be less resilience and determination to withstand what you often must to cope and prevail through the minefield that is a cancer battle.
For these reasons, I strongly advocate people use whatever activities they find helpful to acknowledge, express and navigate through their negative emotions to a state that is more conducive to proactively working with medicine to fight the cancer. Measures such as relaxation, meditation, support groups, counselling, music, humour and expressive writing are just a few of the many cost-free options available.
