Read Online Superhealing: Engaging Your Mind, Body, and Spirit to Create Optimal Health and Well-Being (ARC) by Elaine R. Ferguson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elaine R. Ferguson
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consciously deciding to express emotions
in an honest way, instead of repressing them, and maintaining a
positive and self-aware outlook. These are critical, potent factors in creating optimal health. Nothing can replace these decisions.
CHAPTER ONE: Your Superhealing Mind-Body Connection 37
PERSONALITY, STRESS, AND
HEALTH: ADAPTABILITY TO LIFE
I’d been in private practice for a couple of years when one day,
while running errands, I crossed paths with the granddaughter of
one of my patients. This particular patient, an elderly woman, had numerous medical problems, including heart disease, diabetes, and
high blood pressure. In response to my question of how her grand-
mother was doing, the young woman quickly replied, “Grandma’s
fine. She only gets sick when she gets upset.” That astute and timely observation struck me as a tremendous revelation. It made me consider my other patients in a new light of understanding.
When we are il , how we respond to the illness greatly affects how well we feel. Hippocrates said, “I would rather know the person who has the disease than know the disease the person has.” Studies have found that personality traits have an effect on long-term cancer survival. In a study to predict survival rates in terms of remission, the researchers found that personality classification could predict medical outcomes in 88 percent of the patients who had a rapidly pro-
gressing cancer. The most important characteristic was the “inability to relieve anxiety or depression.” Only 46 percent of people with a poor inability to cope went into remission. Of those with a “fighting spirit,” 75 percent experienced a positive outcome.7
At the turn of the twentieth century, William Jameswrote, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”8 Since then, numerous studies have found that personality patterns appear to play a role in the regulation of the immune system and have shown that they can
lead to the development of specific diseases. I discovered an interesting study from as long ago as 1937 that evaluated the coping styles that lead to disease. In this study, Harvard researchers found that 38
PART ONE: Your Superhealing Mind
individuals who typical y handled stress and strain in an “immature way” became ill four times more often than those who didn’t. Their chief coping style, projection—unconsciously disavowing their conflicting thoughts and feelings by identifying them in the behavior or statements of others—was like that of children.9
From 1947 to 1964, Caroline Bedell-Thomas and Karen Rose con-
ducted a study of essential hypertension and coronary artery dis-
ease, charting its occurrence among 1,300 students at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.10 The researchers were most intrigued by what
the study revealed about the link between personality and illness.
The subjects of the study who had been emotional y distant from
one or both of their parents for more than thirty years had unusual y high rates of mental illness, suicide, and death from cancer.
Part of Bedell-Thomas and Duszynski’s study consisted of giving
students the famed Rorschach inkblot personality test. Students who developed hypertension, who had heart attacks, and who developed
malignant cancers at a much higher rate had described the inkblots using “morbid” words. Those who later committed suicide had used
cancer-related descriptive words fourteen times more often than
their healthy counterparts had.11
Bedell-Thomas and Duszynski wondered, Could “unconscious
dreads and morbid fears, which, in some individuals, are ever-present stresses, undermine the biological guardians of general resistance?”12
During my own medical school education, there was a lot of buzz
about the type A personality. This personality style describes people who are obsessed with time management and are high-achieving work-aholics,
in an honest way, instead of repressing them, and maintaining a
positive and self-aware outlook. These are critical, potent factors in creating optimal health. Nothing can replace these decisions.
CHAPTER ONE: Your Superhealing Mind-Body Connection 37
PERSONALITY, STRESS, AND
HEALTH: ADAPTABILITY TO LIFE
I’d been in private practice for a couple of years when one day,
while running errands, I crossed paths with the granddaughter of
one of my patients. This particular patient, an elderly woman, had numerous medical problems, including heart disease, diabetes, and
high blood pressure. In response to my question of how her grand-
mother was doing, the young woman quickly replied, “Grandma’s
fine. She only gets sick when she gets upset.” That astute and timely observation struck me as a tremendous revelation. It made me consider my other patients in a new light of understanding.
When we are il , how we respond to the illness greatly affects how well we feel. Hippocrates said, “I would rather know the person who has the disease than know the disease the person has.” Studies have found that personality traits have an effect on long-term cancer survival. In a study to predict survival rates in terms of remission, the researchers found that personality classification could predict medical outcomes in 88 percent of the patients who had a rapidly pro-
gressing cancer. The most important characteristic was the “inability to relieve anxiety or depression.” Only 46 percent of people with a poor inability to cope went into remission. Of those with a “fighting spirit,” 75 percent experienced a positive outcome.7
At the turn of the twentieth century, William Jameswrote, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”8 Since then, numerous studies have found that personality patterns appear to play a role in the regulation of the immune system and have shown that they can
lead to the development of specific diseases. I discovered an interesting study from as long ago as 1937 that evaluated the coping styles that lead to disease. In this study, Harvard researchers found that 38
PART ONE: Your Superhealing Mind
individuals who typical y handled stress and strain in an “immature way” became ill four times more often than those who didn’t. Their chief coping style, projection—unconsciously disavowing their conflicting thoughts and feelings by identifying them in the behavior or statements of others—was like that of children.9
From 1947 to 1964, Caroline Bedell-Thomas and Karen Rose con-
ducted a study of essential hypertension and coronary artery dis-
ease, charting its occurrence among 1,300 students at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.10 The researchers were most intrigued by what
the study revealed about the link between personality and illness.
The subjects of the study who had been emotional y distant from
one or both of their parents for more than thirty years had unusual y high rates of mental illness, suicide, and death from cancer.
Part of Bedell-Thomas and Duszynski’s study consisted of giving
students the famed Rorschach inkblot personality test. Students who developed hypertension, who had heart attacks, and who developed
malignant cancers at a much higher rate had described the inkblots using “morbid” words. Those who later committed suicide had used
cancer-related descriptive words fourteen times more often than
their healthy counterparts had.11
Bedell-Thomas and Duszynski wondered, Could “unconscious
dreads and morbid fears, which, in some individuals, are ever-present stresses, undermine the biological guardians of general resistance?”12
During my own medical school education, there was a lot of buzz
about the type A personality. This personality style describes people who are obsessed with time management and are high-achieving work-aholics,
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