Jim Cooper's Orange County; Health and Mind

A merry heart doing good like a medicine but a broken spirit. Dry of the bone. That verse some 3000 years old is from King Solomon Proverbs in the Old Testament of the Bible. Medical science has long recognized that the mind and a patients attitude can have a great bearing on a patient's well-being but only in recent years had the expanding literature on the subject presented new clinical evidence of the connection between the mine. I'm Jim Cooper and I look into this fascinating idea today. Dr F. Patrick MCKECHNIE professor of psychiatry and medicine at the University of Vermont

writes over the last 10 years there's been a virtual explosion of studies that document the relationship between stress and both immune function and the course of diseases in which immune factors seem to be important particularly cancer books such as old by Norman Cousins. Stress the power of a big and enormous self healing capacities. When working with the doctor to bring about healing and many major diseases. Let's go now with our camera to a typical therapy session in Orange County where a physician is working with patients to mobilize their self healing powers. The places the Oceanview psychiatric associates office in Newport Beach. This is a night time once a week therapy session and all patients have one thing in common. All have been diagnosed as having some form of cancer. Leading this action is Dr. Jordan Weiss a psychiatry who also is board certified as an internist specializing in psychosomatic medicine. He has developed this program most of his patients are referred to him by their physicians who recognize the importance of turning the patients healing

power to share in the treatment of the disease. But I don't know anybody who has cancer or cancer that doesn't think about a cure five 10 years down the line. They get a little something when they start to think well so that's perfectly normal. The therapy is based on the awareness that major catastrophic diseases like multiple sclerosis arthritis and cancer have been shown to be affected by emotional factors and stress negative emotions and stress can impair or reduce the body's immune response allowing the disease to continue or accelerate its course. Conversely positive emotional response confidence hope and a vibrant commitment to live and to fight the disease can mobilize the patients immune system to help battle the disease. Other part of the therapy include hypnosis biofeedback and imaging to instill a positive mental outlook. This is an imaging segment. You know that if you knew just.

By yourself Dr. Weiss stresses that his program never promises anybody that they will be cured. However he says they can be helped to deal with it to feel better and to lead more productive lives. Some patients have experienced remission and all feel they are part of their own treatment. I talked with some of them at the close of the session. Think good rule of Westminster has had surgery for skin cancer she's been in the program since January. What is all this meant to you using your own mind to help you effectively in your in your disease. I think basically I didn't realize how destructive I was being to myself by not using my mind and your mind in a positive way and

just kind of letting my body go and and not being the best me that I could be. Because attitude so important when it comes to to anything. But I think most especially with your health how would this change your life coming to sessions like this. It's made me have a more positive outlook and to write more out a life in and to realize how important it is said that you care what you think about the future. What are your thoughts about the future. Yeah sometimes I'm scared because I think everyone that has cancer is afraid of recurrence and but you just can't let yourself well and that you have to go on in the positive aspect in and just get on with your life and do the best you can. Robert Aumann of Santana was diagnosed in April of 1983 as having inoperable cancer of the pancreas and liver.

What's all this meant to you coming here and thinking about it and seeing the power of the mind and in attacking the problems that you have with your sickness by being here I feel that I have been given the opportunity to learn tools with which I can use my own mind over my illness. And evidently by the prognosis and the way things are going right now you must work very well as far as I'm concerned it does what the latest diagnosis for you. The latest diagnosis is there is no growth in the in the liver and the tumor in the thinker's has disappeared or it's gone I don't know and I don't really care. Joe corner of Huntington Beach had breast cancer surgery on March 1st of last year and she had been therapy sessions like this since November. What's all this meant to you. I it's meant a new beginning a second chance the opportunity to really tap into myself and to have some control over my destiny.

What kind of a message would you give to anyone else who may have been diagnosed with cancer who didn't perhaps even know about the effectiveness of this kind of therapy in helping attack this illness. Well besides getting comp and medical care this type of of therapy not only adds to the effectiveness of what you're doing and having done on the outside but gives you as I said control over what's happening. You know as a participant and as the the controller you're the one who controls the images you're the one who makes the decisions are able to take an affective part in your cure. I found the need to be most remarkable and positive people. And now let's meet our guests Dr. Jordan Weiss is a psychiatrist and board certified internist specializing in psychosomatic. He was he had his medical training at the University of Illinois in Chicago and took a residency in internal medicine at Cook County Hospital. Dr. Weiss completed his residency in psychiatry at the UC Irvine Medical Center

and has a practice in Newport Beach. Dr. Paul L. Aronson is a board certified oncologist and the mythologists practicing in Fountain Valley. He obtained his medical degree from the university Bologna in Italy and took his residency at Providence Hospital in Southfield Michigan. Dr. Aronson has worked with hospice programs in Michigan and California and is affiliated with the University of Southern California Cancer Network. Pam gotra of San Juan Capistrano I was diagnosed as having cancer in April in 1083 after a year of therapy in what she terms wanting to retake control of our health and our life. She was told that a cancer was in remission for the past two years she been actively studying the causes and cures of cancer and gone back to work part time. You all make of a very interesting group of people to talk to about this problem. You as a psychiatrist you as a cancer specialist in the middle of it and you as a person who had been there I feel I'm fortunate to be able to talk about this

with you. I'd like each of you to give your perspective on just what this power is what it can do and what it can't do. Let's start with you Dr. way. Well I think we don't even know the limits. Excuse me of what it can do. I I liken it to like solar energy it's like we just discovered solar energy and all of a sudden you realize that it's free that it's out there. And to the extent with that we're willing to tap it. It's useful to us. I think that most people can use their minds to decrease their suffering in some cases as these people are. If you notice the quote I had from the doctor from the professor at the Vermont school of medicine he said only in the last 10 years had this subject matter been exploding So this is a relatively new arena for medicine is that a fair observation to make with relatively Dr. Aronson what about you what what can the do what can it what your perspective on it. I think that based on my experience with patients that have had malignant diseases that the most important

thing is additive. And in my own experience of 10 years practicing oncology I've seen two types of individuals the survivors and the non survivors patients that may have the identical illness. One will live one will die. Within them then lies the survival or non-survival that will eventually lead to their ultimate outcome that is whether they live or they die. So I've been very impressed with this this whole aspect. I became very much involved with it about 10 years ago when I was introduced to the work Carl Simonton who I think really brought this whole concept to to the public and to the medical profession. Most of the doctors in your profession oncologist are very pragmatic they say you must do this and you must do that because that's the prescribed norm you must go to COBOL you must go to therapy you must go to Kemah therapy or whatever the prescribe the indicated procedures are some of them being the less pragmatic and open your mind to

saying maybe there's some other power that we haven't tapped whether we call it analogous to solar power or whatever other power it is. Is there still some prejudice and a little bit of reticence about embracing that other concept. There's a great deal of resistance to that. I think that the resistance lies in the physician who. Is now struggling with the idea of giving up his power. I have the medicine. I have the cure. I will treat you and and the reluctance lies in his giving up that power to the patient to the individual who really does have the power. That's an interesting thought. Now Norman Cousins in in one of his books called human options talks about where the power of the physician really lies and the power is not the power of the pen. That is to write a prescription. It's not to write for a chemotherapeutic agent. The power the physician has is giving that patient the power giving that patient the ability or the strength to fight

to mobilize his own. Natural reward as well as on battling at the thing. That's right. That's right. And I think that that's the most important thing we can do for people. I think that yes traditionally we give people chemotherapy radiation therapy. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't work. But that's not where our responsibility ends. We have to teach people the physician is a teacher. He should teach his patients the ability in the capacity that they have through the power that they control and through processes that we can teach them to fight their own illness. This is the case this is the most important thing we can give patients. I was extraordinarily impressed by the candor and the marvelous honesty that I encountered going into your therapy session of these patients being able to speak with mountains of truth about their own feelings. And I came away from that profoundly respectful of those people. Am I your. A woman who has been told that some women have that you have breast cancer

that your breasts must be removed and it must be an enormous shattering blow your mind talking about it I appreciate your your candor in coming here and being able to be one of our guests. Sure. Guys when you're told that your breast has to be removed and it's high and there's really no way to describe it it took me a long time before I was probably 24 hours before I even heard it happen or having to be not out of death. And I had a very hard thing to describe it's a really intimate part of who a woman is. Of course I was very lucky that California has a state law requiring doctors to mention the alternatives most states don't have that law. And my surgeon did mention to me the option of radiation treatment after following lumpectomy which I took. And that in itself was a great relief. Even having the power to make a decision because I know so many

people with cancer who go to a doctor. And standard type doctor and are not given choices and I was given a choice and the power to make a decision and for me that was really the first step to the on the road to recovery I would think it be the double shock one shock is touring that you have of the next shock of saying we're going to give you chemotherapy you're going to fall off the bank. Like to an awful monumental shock to the psyche. Within a few weeks of each other. What then happened to you. If you'll tell us in this process of turning your own mind mobilizing your own inner forces or powers or whatever word we want to give to it to attack this disease. OK again I began to take control early on I discovered I had to I said. I actually began to argue with my doctor which I have since discovered is rather healthy sign. Not only because I needed to take some control I'm sure that you'd agree with that. Oh sure I can control myself and throw away with my disease

and I needed to have some control over my treatment. I discovered symmetry which is sounds kind of the core of what we're really trying we're never connecting with anyone on this program before this. No I don't know what you're you're so I discovered imagery in a book and then what happened. Well if it gives you such power when you realize that you actually have a choice. About how your immune system is functioning and you can take that choice and do something with it day by day it's better to set an incredible tool. And you began to notice positive results now and as a two years later now and what is the status of your condition now. I just had my two year checkup and also out which is real nice but you're keeping to you hang on to them the positive imagery you're hanging on to the positive thoughts that I think that your work was retaking control yet of your own. Yes. How well the amatory is useful for a lot of other things besides just mobilizing means it's like they give us give us an example you can give them a treat to

talk to yourself and learn more about yourself and maybe wet the reasons where for me what caused my cancer. But you can help me use it to help you maybe feel better about yourself maybe to like yourself a little bit. But exactly that fact and study you know. Let's let's take it one step beyond the hardware that narrow line to where this kind of positive imagery and positive mental control begins and where clinical attacked in the established traditional method of treatment that are indicated where the what did one end where the other begins because if you go to a doctor and you get a heart attack you see what else can I do to help myself you give me a list of things you know watch your cholesterol do some exercise relax in some fashion or other you know don't work so late at the office. OK. If you go and you try and you have cancer and you say what else can I do. Many doctors will say well hoping that you're lucky. So the first thing is that you get the quality care which you can get in California which you should get from an oncologist to have a little

bit of that is in there to get that kind of but it depending on what kind of cancer you have I think would be sheer folly to advocate people to do otherwise and they are and then what. And then they say to themselves hopefully what else can I do. And we find that he's as well as many other scientists that as you reduce the stress in your life that means looking at your job looking at your relationships looking at perhaps a spiritually where you are looking at your attrition or your whole lifestyle yet that as you reduce the various stresses in your life that you were able to in that sense you're taking control of your life not mobilizing yourself and the chemotherapy works better you're able to actually go to work continue would work. Many people don't lose their here. Many people don't get the side effects so that you're doing everything kind of simultaneously. You can go to you know they're going to morning encounter group in the evening. People like Norman Cousins and many others who've written about this have said that. But we still don't know the depth of the power that can be obtained I think we talked about that we alluded to that earlier in the program.

But having it doesn't increase your odds by 50 percent 67 percent. Can you can you quantify that at all as to what the chances are to battle these diseases by using this technique I know that's a tough question but does it that the literature anywhere have any specific clinical evidence as to how much of a piece is your opportunity to bet with. Now I would say that it increases it certainly I can say that because I'm a lay person. Yeah but in addition it increases the quality of your life so enormously in that time that's even a bigger part of it as a layperson though a lot of people can identify with you because you are you one of those things cold turkey if you want to use that expression I had to go through a learning process yourself. You talk to other people to try and help them now that you give them your insights What do you say to them yes. Can I say that illness is a message. It's an opportunity to learn about yourself it's in fact it's a demand to learn about

yourself and to. Be willing to make changes and that is a real key ingredient to getting better and to improve your life generally and doctrines and you feel at all threatened if you say I'm at the at the cancer specialist term when your patients over to someone like a Dr. Wise we're going to add this other layer of treatment. Do you feel at all threatened by that or do you feel diminished in any way in your professional attack on this problem. No not at all. I feel that that this is an essential part of treatment. And I try to encourage each and every patient that I that I see to read about this to educate themselves about this and then to become involved in the process. And I to to point out one thing though and and Dr. Weiss clearly illustrated what he thinks the the the whole thrust of this process is. I'd like to take it one step further though and like in a two way control.

Anyone who has a weight problem realizes that you don't just lose the 30 pounds and then go back to your old habits there's a whole process of behavioral modification that's involved in weight control. And if you're going to control your way you want it to happen on a permanent basis not on a temporary basis and go up and down and up and down and back to Weight Watchers the same is true for any kind of malignant disease. If you're going to get involved in this healing process if you're going to take the steps necessary to learn imagery to learn self-hypnosis to learn all the processes that are so important to controlling this disease you can't feel at the end of three years just because there's no demonstrably disease that you feel comfortable stopping. I mean this is an ongoing process it's a life change. It's a life exercise. And I think that that's an in a very very important concept. The other thing that's really important is that you if you have cancer that you work with oncologist who sensitive to these issues and who doesn't say well I'm going to prescribe this and this and this is what's real and I will be next and we'll do that and that's at the same a Nexstar

That's right the you know basically when they finish that it you sort of expect them to say this was a recorded announcement. I mean this there's no personal touch. For many many years and many many years makes me feel old. I was involved with sending patients to therapists for this entire process. And and since I've been living here in California I really felt the tremendous need to be involved myself. So when I send a patient to Dr. Weiss for example or to another therapist I like to be involved in that process because I feel that part of my involvement with the patient is a healing involvement. Yeah and I'm going to send them someplace I want to be involved in that process as well. Maybe that's partly my resistance to giving up some sort of involvement of you know role but I think that the patients appreciate that also they realize that I am there with them and I'm learning also. Yeah you get a much more active responsible functional patient. You know Paul has sent me a patient and a patient. And those people by the way some of the people in that group I

think are changed permanently. I mean their lifestyle change your belief systems are changed but he's going to get fewer calls he's going to have fewer crises they're going to be fewer hospital days there's going to be money saved in addition. And he can interact with me and I can say well I don't violate a confidence but we might have something that we can share about how the patient can do in the next step. For example suppose you're in a hospital and you may remind them of certain images or keep the keep the work going in some way. Work with the family that I may not see any given time and discuss individual problems. So actually it's a dynamic flow and there's it's it's cooperation there is no competition. You might have a a great a great disparity a great variety of mindsets of different people who come to the work clinically very rigid people who don't even want to discuss it. On one side of the spectrum another one are people who are very suggestive. People are being suggested and are capable of being reached by suggestion I should say right now between the two spectrums What is the typical

profile of someone who can be helped. Damn you having thoughts. Oh I think I can I can make a comment about that and I think that there's a very good illustration and one of the patients that you interviewed Mr. Allman Yes he is a patient of mine and he was very resistant to this to the point where he. I was becoming frustrated because he wasn't listening to me. He wasn't hearing what I had to say. And I think that Bob really was going through a process not very much on like this but not organized and he didn't have all the tools like he was talking about the tools. But he resisted it and he was very resistant to giving anyone else you any kind of control. I had a lot of intellectual rigidity about tremendous however. And once he became involved in the seminars that Dr. Weiss was doing he thoroughly changed. So even even individuals who are rigid even individuals who seem to to obstruct change

can really see the light can really change. I think that this is the the the most important thing that Dr. Simonton tried to contribute to to our understanding of of malignant illness. And that is that you can change the non-survival to a survivor. I mean there's no point in in doing this with a survivor because they're going to survive whatever you do. I mean they're going to do it on their own. The whole point is taking the non-survival and making them into a survivor his the two sticks incidentally. Did demonstrate that that is that there there are morbidity and mortality was far lower than in the untreated group. So we do have statistics that bet that collaborate with I know it's dangerous to say this. This is going to cure a disease or that's going to cure it. But can you tell me from some of your personal experience both of you what kind of experience you have at either an emulation of a Korean remissions that kind of case can you give me some examples. Yeah in my experience and

I'm talking about thousands of patients over the years there is definitely a distinct difference between the treated group and the untreated group. And that difference is that they have a better lifestyle. They do live longer and their life quality is far better. Their hospital days are lower their time of being down and Hill are lower and these people go back to work. They become functional members of society again in the untreated group. The outlook is far more dismal. And of course I'm talking generalities. But these are cases of real people and results rather than your real life. The Cure I mean referring to my case in point is a Mr Ohman but whose whose illness he should have had him dead to two years ago checked really and in reality he's here and he's functional. I mean there is a classic example of how how this really doesn't miliary the situation and you say to him yeah I mean there are many successes and part of the problem has been that medicine normally looks at studies in terms of thousands and thousands of people

and until you get thousands of people I guess some people won't be convinced. But the number of individuals that I work with involve work with. That is so large and you hear stories that are you know with me every day that you can no longer really tonight it seems to me that or that or that but the two that were just talking about there's no question that the their quality of life is better their days of feeling good are better and in many cases their remissions as we've seen their families are Anything you'd say to anyone who may be thinking this because that's what television can do it can reach people in their living room and get a message to them is there anything you'd like to say to perhaps other women who going through what you're going through right now what would you say to them. I would say that cancer is very frightening but it's not terminal necessarily. Only you have a big choice about that. And to to not to be too afraid to start to work to get better and you can take a share in that. I think that's a message that I think we all agree that you can share in that battle. I wish we had more time for that but our time is about up. Time is almost up in fact I want to thank

our guests today who can offer positive thoughts and great hope to many people with serious disease. They join me next week at the same time when I talk with Barbara Marc Savard and her quest for the future. I'm Jim Cooper thanks for being with us.