Coping

A Practical Guide for People with Life-Challenging Diseases and their Carers

Rubin Battino

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN: 9781899836680
• eBook ISBN: 9781845905002
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

A practical guide for those living with or dealing with life-challenging diseases. Coping features a wide range of techniques and exercises that have proved to have a healing influence. " An excellent source of information and wisdom" Bernie Siegel MD, author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Life can be capricious and unpredictable and has a way of challenging us in the most surprising ways. Some of these surprises are pleasant and others are not; some we have some control over after the event. The Serenity Prayer counsels, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The late Viennese psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl advised that we always have the choice of how we respond to adversity, even in the most extreme of circumstances like his survival of Nazi concentration camps or Christopher Reeve’s responses to a riding accident that left him a quadriplegic.

How do you cope with a life-challenging disease or with a catastrophic personal event? Some people seem to be ‘naturally’ better at this than others, but we can all learn and improve our coping skills. This book is a practical compendium of many ways of coping that I have learned from my friends in the support groups I facilitate, and from my readings and other experiences. This book is for the layperson who is thus challenged, and those who care for them.

How you respond to adversity can have a profound effect on the physical course of a disease. Later in this chapter we cite David Spiegel et al.’s work with fourth-stage metastatic breast cancer women. The field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) has unequivocally demonstrated the existence of mind/body interactions. Yet, aside from the scientific evidence, common sense and daily observation provide proof that those who see a glass of water as ‘half full’ rather than ‘half empty’ appear to do better in all aspects of life. There is a healing power in hope, and a destructive power in despair. There is healing when you feel in charge and in control, and potential negative effects when you feel hopeless and out of control and dependent. Attitude matters; activity matters; faith and hope matter; people and love and caring and touching and laughter and a baby’s smile matter. This moment matters—this moment and this breath and this feeling are life. The past is memory and the future is unknown and unexperienced since it is a projection, a dream. Now is. And yet, we shouldn’t belittle hopes and dreams, for they are the foundation for meaning, and without meaning—life is meaningless, isn’t it?

So, this book is about hope—to cope you need hope.

We start with a discussion of the useful distinctions between disease and illness, and between cure and healing.

1.2 Disease/Cure and Illness/Healing

Despite the ancient adage of “sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you,” words can have powerful positive and negative effects on the human mind and body. ‘Disease’ may mean one thing to one person and something else to another. Oncologists rarely use the word ‘cure.’ If you have been in remission for five years, then they consider the return of cancer to be unlikely. But they always caution about a possible recurrence. Words and how we interpret them are important, so in this section we define and explore the meanings of four significant words.

It is popular in some quarters to write the word ‘disease’ as dis-ease, implying that it describes a state that is the opposite of being at ease, in comfort, or relaxed. In this book we define a disease as something that is physically wrong with the body. That is, a disease is the pathology itself. Examples are: cancer, infections, hormonal imbalances, diverticulitis, ulcers, strokes, myocardial infarctions and insufficiencies, and broken bones. Reversing or fixing a disease (in Western societies) typically involves a ‘mechanical’ intervention of some sort: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, antibiotics, supplements, diet changes, physical rehabilitation, and drugs. When the disease is fixed or has gone away, the person is said to be ‘cured.’ So, a cure is the reversal of a disease, the disappearance of its physical manifestations, and a return to normal healthy functioning. We are fortunate that there are a great many diseases that can be cured in a straightforward manner. We are also fortunate that there are now many ways to ease suffering.

How is healing different from curing? To clarify this, we first need to make a distinction between an illness and a disease. We define illness to be the meaning that you personally attribute to the disease. These meanings are unique to you and are determined by your history-culture-religion-ethnicity-belief system-intellectual predilection-upbringing-heritage-philosophy of life. Siblings are more likely to interpret a given disease in the same way compared to people from different cultures. Yet, due to different life experiences, sisters may react in very different ways to a preliminary diagnosis of breast cancer. Healing applies to the meaning of the disease, i.e., the illness. The root of healing signifies ‘to make whole.’ Healing is more related to internal feeling states than to physical states.

For example, a few decades ago in the Bronx in my Greek-Jewish subculture, the word ‘cancer’ was rarely mentioned, or spoken only in a whisper. There was a belief that saying the word out loud (or even thinking it!) would catch the attention of the ‘Evil One’ and you would then be more susceptible to getting cancer. Evil Ones or devils were part of the belief system of my relatives. This reaction to a word colored all of our thinking and responses. A person who had CANCER was doomed to a horrible death, but it also bore connotations of shame and pity. The illness was worse than the disease; it led to a helplessness and hopelessness on the part of the afflicted person, as well as caregivers and well-wishers. Thankfully, many of our attitudes towards ‘cancer-the-disease’ have changed. Bernie Siegel sums it up best by saying, “Cancer is not a sentence, it is just a word.”

Healing deals with attitudes and meaning. When a person is healed, he becomes whole again, and can be at peace with himself, the disease, and the world at large.1 Healing is involved with the spirit and the soul and one’s essence. For some, a healing experience may be described as a spiritual experience, perhaps even a spiritual transformation. To become whole, to be in harmony, to be centered, to find one’s true self, to be at peace with yourself and the world—all of these are manifestations of healing.

Figure 1.1a: The word ‘cancer’ is whispered.

Figure 1.1b: Doctor: “Remember, cancer is just a word—it is not a sentence.”

Remarkably, although healing is an end in itself, healing is often accompanied by some degree of curing, if not complete cures, with sufficient frequency to be taken seriously. The goal of healing work is not a cure—the cure is a by-product of healing. In fact, if the sole motivation for healing work is a cure, then the healing work becomes contaminated and side-tracked. Healing invariably involves a search for meaning, a spiritual quest. What does it all mean? Why am I alive at this moment in time? Are there things that are meant for me to do in the rest of my life? About two thousand years ago Rabbi Hillel was asked to summarize his lifelong wisdom. He responded with the following three questions:

If I am not for myself, who will be?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

If not now, when?

We might say that healing an illness involves answering these questions honestly.

A related linguistic pairing are the words ‘patient’ and ‘client.’ The linguistic root of patient is in suffering and, in seeking healing, we ‘suffer’ through to a resolution. In this sense, there is an active suffering, rather than a victim suffering. Most doctors use the word ‘patient’ rather than ‘client.’ Perhaps this is because in so many medical settings a person has to be patient in waiting for a treatment. The word ‘patient’ implies a one-down position, superior/inferior, an unequal status. The word ‘client’ is better since it implies providing a professional service for a fee. Clients ‘hire’ professionals to carry out a specific function such as: write a will, set a bone, fix a leak, and identify and cure an infection. These are contracted services and the professional works for you. Which professionals routinely keep you waiting for the service for which you pay them? It is almost as if your time is not as valuable as that of the physician or lawyer or … Occasional waits for medical services would be reasonable due to unforeseen circumstances. But, waiting seems to be the rule rather than the exception. I had a dentist in Chicago who always had me in the chair at the appointed time. He had an emergency repair at one of these sessions and asked my permission to take care of that client first. He treated his clients with respect, just as I responded to his request with respect. In the patient position, procedures are generally done to you. As a client, there would be more cooperation in what happens. In relation to medical practices, it is wise, and even healing, to be a client rather than a patient.

1.3 Complementary and Nontraditional Approaches: Alternative Medicine and Therapies

Bernie Siegel rightly insists that your healing/curing journey needs to be done in partnership with traditional medicine. After all, there are a great many diseases that can be competently and effectively treated by modern medicine. These range from fractures to by-pass surgery, (most) infections, hernias, allergies, and cataract surgery. While it is true that the most significant contributor to the increase in longevity since 1900 has been public sanitation, the armamentarium and skills and contributions of present-day physicians are indisputable. One would be foolish indeed not to avail himself of such proven services. Yet, somehow, parallel with the advances of medicine, we find increasing interest in nontraditional approaches to health and health care. Why is this?

Although great progress has been made in many areas, there are still many diseases like the common cold which continue to defy modern medicine. Since hope springs eternal, and you recall your Aunt Mary who had this tonic that always worked in your family, why not try it? There are many folk remedies and traditional Asian herbal medicines that have been used for centuries. There is occasional scientific evidence, i.e., double-blind studies, for some of these substances. But, mostly, the evidence for efficaciousness is historical and anecdotal. One advantage of most (but not all) of these substances is that side-effects appear to be minimal. ‘Above all, cause no harm to your patients.’

Non-modern-medicine approaches have been called...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Foreword
• Contributors
• Chapter One : Introduction
• Chapter Two : Relaxation Methods
• Chapter Three : Support Groups
• Chapter Four : Journaling, Structured Writing, Videotaping, Art Therapy, and Ceremonies
• Chapter Five : Varieties of Coping
• Chapter Six : Nutrition and Life-Challenging Diseases
• Chapter Seven : Beyond Coping
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E
• Appendix F
• Appendix G
• Appendix H
• References
• Index
• Advertisement
• Copyright