You Can Fight For Your Life: Emotional Factors in the Treatment of Cancer

by Lawrence LeShan

The reason why clinical science has not solved the riddle of cancer may not lie totally within the realm of the laboratory. It may lie in part in the mind and emotions of the patient.

After two decades of research and psychotherapeutic work with cancer patients, Lawrence LeShan offers new evidence and startling insights into why some individuals get cancer while others do not--and why some are able to fight successfully for their lives while others rapidly succumb to the disease. Dr. LeShan has accumulated strong evidence that the mind can make the body receptive to cancer--and that the mind is also capable of fighting back.

This is a book of hope. For while cancer kills, it can also be killed. You Can Fight For Your Life is a major humanistic work by an author with a passionate commitment to life.

Genres: Health

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Also wrote as Edward Grendon.

Reviews

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

LeShan argues here that there is a distinct personality type and life history that can be associated with roughly 70% of cancer patients. Said people have a very low self-esteem, which started early on in life, usually exacerbated by parents neglect. They then went on to assume a false-self in hopes of being loved and not being abandoned. They thus feel trapped: if they become who they are, they will be abandoned. If they don't, they don't feel truly connected and loved, since they're not being their authentic self, though they're not always aware of that fact. At some point in life they develop a meaningful connection with something or someone but then for some reason loses that connection. They then despair. Cancer shows up in months or years after the end of said connection. It's no coincidence the incidence of cancer in widows is astounding.

Funnily enough, the only person my age (36) I know to ever have had cancer fits the bill precisely. He was neglected by an absent mother and father from an early age, disliked by teachers for being a daredevil and bullied by friends for being an oddball. Suddenly at 15 joins church and becomes something totally other, very well-behaved and popular with the church youth. There he is loved and accepted with his new fake (not consciously fake) personality. He even finds a girlfriend there which he goes on to date and eventually marry.

I met him several times in our 20's and he always sounded very hollow and uptight, only capable of speaking of trivialities. At one occasion, in a more honest conversation (I tend to provoke those) and speaking of relationships, he confesses he didn't want to get married with his then fiancée, but what's a man to do? Surely not breaking up with his long time (and only) girlfriend. He then went on to get married. On a different occasion I met him again, and speaking of work, he very resentfully said he is not a big shot like his brother and was recently fired from his lame job, but what's a man to do? The economy, the market, etc.

Not many years later I received the news he has cancer.

It could all be a coincidence but good God the similarities with the cases described in this 40-year-old book are just ridiculously eerie to be dismissed.

I wish they had this book in Portuguese to gift it to my friend. I'm still not sure what to do, but I really wanted him to have access to this information, but I have no idea if it's appropriate.

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has more than two decades of experience in psychotherapy and the book is a summary of the lessons he learned from his practice. It's a good read for people either suffering from a serious decease or anyone that wants to improve their well-being. Some of the major points: being able to express your emotions, finding meaning, caring less what other think. The book is quick read with lots of examples.