Cancer, Hope and False Hope?

My belief is that hope is absolutely vital when considering the healing process, yet, it is important to establish that hope is not the same thing as positive thinking. I do not suggest that anyone who is facing the challenges of cancer or other chronic illness merely tries to think in a more positive way and that all will be well.

complementary cancer bostonHope
The opposite of hope is hopelessness and hopelessness is a state of mind in which a person feels like nothing more can be done – they give up. Hope promotes activity, so if you feel hopeful you are more inclined to take action. An active state of being can boost and promote the efficient function of your immune system. And when you have a stronger immune system your body is better equipped to defend itself and fight any condition of ill health.

There are two powerful negative expectations that surround cancer and they are:

1. Cancer = Death
2. Cancer = Strikes randomly and is beyond your control

These are outdated statements which are no longer true. Advancement in medicine and technology as well as non medical practices such as hypnosis for cancer as prescribed in Immersive Healing ensure more people overcome the cancer today than ever before. This is not to say that everyone win this battle or that it’s easy to do so, just to state and acknowledge the progress we’ve made and that hope is empowering and vital component in the healing process.

Having said that, I want to emphasize that it’s not a simple matter of saying to a client “be hopeful and you’ll get well”. Rather to understand that if a person has hope in their life, feel hopeful and empowered, they will find themselves in a better position to heal.

False Hope
Some medical professional would argue that using complimentary alternative therapies in cancer treatment only give people false hope. As mentioned in my book The New Cancer Paradigm my answer to that is that false hope only exists when one guarantees an unrealistic treatment outcome.

My whisper to you is to avoid at all costs those practitioners who claim they can cure an illness. Instead, look for those practitioners who advocates reasonable hope – this is very different to false hope.
Reasonable hope is logical, after all the medical profession cannot guarantee that their approach will work either. None of us in any of the healing professions have all the answers.

False Hopelessness

holistic cancer brooklineIn his book Healing Psyche, Rob van Overbruggen discusses the possibility of false hopelessness. False hopelessness occurs when someone is told that their illness is untreatable and that nothing more can be done for them.

Many people store so much faith in the medical profession that this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The simple truth is that no one really knows who will heal and why they heal, but the fact is that some people do.

Hope and your ability to heal
All my clients know that I make no guarantees – my approach to healing may or may not be enough.
I do believe wholeheartedly that I can help a person with cancer or chronic illness takes control and ownership of their health.

The human body and spirit are more powerful than anyone at this time can fully understand. I aim to tap into this potential for the body to heal and help people move forwards into a state of mind that promotes reasonable hope and may facilitate the healing process.

The alternative to reasonable hope is false hopelessness – the idea that people should just give up.
Hope is a part of the human psyche. A life without hope is not realistic it is pessimistic – hope offers us a full, rich and more active way to experience life.

I believe it is fair to offer people the opportunity of reasonable hope, do you?

1 reply
  1. Angela
    Angela says:

    Yes I do believe it’s fair and important to offer reasonable hope. Just because science can’t prove something exists doesn’t mean that it doesn’t.

    I realized that I needed to balance hope with acceptance in order to enjoy life as much as possible. When I chose to give up on hope and ever becoming well I became depressed. And if I didn’t accept my illness I would beat my head against a wall wishing things were different and in the process cause myself to feel unhappy.

    I understand not wanting to feel disappointment, but I’d rather feel excited about the possibility of something good happening than protect myself from possibly feeling disappointment.

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