Cancer and the Subconscious

Yvonne Schwab

In May of 1999, I met “Cindy” for the first time. She had been diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes in the throat and was concerned because her surgeon had indicated that he was going to remove all the lymph nodes in her throat. She had scary dreams and thoughts of her throat being cut from one side to the other.

During the “pre talk” portion of the session, we discussed her options at length—she could decline the surgery and let nature take its course, she could utilize alternative health remedies, or she could use the power of her subconscious mind to assist her in getting the best results from her surgery.

She opted for the third process. We discovered that a major part of her concern with having the surgery was that she only had cancer in one of the lymph nodes, yet her doctor was planning on removing them all.

She and her family had done quite a bit of research on surgeons, and found that her doctor was one of the best in his field … and the best in the area, but this did not help her to feel better about his lack of bedside manner.

She also had concerns about pain, and about scarring on her throat … according to the doctor, one slip of the scalpel could eliminate her ability to smile and “I’m a smiler”, she said.

After assisting Cindy to achieve a deep state of relaxation, I invited her subconscious mind to become open and receptive to the positive suggestions I was giving it.

I suggested that Cindy could trust her doctor to do the best possible job for her, that he would only take the lymph node with the cancer in it, and then when the surgery was complete, her body would be free and clear of all cancer cells.

I also suggested that the incision would bleed only as appropriate to cleanse the wound and that it would heal very quickly without scarring. I suggested that unless there was a need for medical attention that there would be no 4

need for any discomfort. I also expressed that her body’s natural ability to heal would be accelerated and that she would heal so quickly that the nurses would be amazed by her powerful healing ability

I repeated all of these suggestions on an audiotape that was about 15 minutes in length and which included an induction (relaxation).

Cindy had a vacation scheduled before her surgery, so she took her tape along and listened to it twice a day for a little over two weeks.

She returned from vacation to have her surgery, which was scheduled on a Thursday afternoon. When she came out of the anaesthesia, she asked her doctor how the surgery went and when she would be released from the hospital.

He informed her that he took the lymph node with the cancer and one that was so close to it that it was touching the cancerous node, and he left all of the others intact. The surgery didn’t require him to go anywhere near the muscles that control smiling, and he was pleased with the way the surgery went.

He then told her that the soonest she would be able to go home would be on Monday evening, yet on Sunday afternoon, I received a call from Cindy telling me that she was home—apparently the nurses told her she was “far too healthy to be in their hospital, and besides, they needed the bed.”

Two weeks later at her follow up visit with the surgeon, he ran some tests and when the results came in, he declared her to be “free and clear of all cancer cells”.

What I feel is especially wonderful about this story is that Cindy was my very first client.

She was extremely receptive to hypnosis because she had used it 25 years earlier to stop smoking with great success. She also was very motivated to assist in her healing process and therefore had great results.

I look back at this session with such great gratitude to Cindy for giving me a chance to work with her when I was a virtual novice. The results that she 5

achieved from doing this work were so dramatic that I knew I had found my niche—not only a career field, but within the field itself.

A good portion of the hypnotherapy I do is for pre and post surgery, as well as the alleviation of side affects of vigorous medical treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy, pain management, and enhancing the childbirth experience. All of this came out of the work I did with Cindy.

In the next case study, I’ll illustrate the success of hypnotherapy in alleviating the side effects of radiation therapy when Cindy went through a 30-day course of treatment later in 1999.

Case History

Cindy P. part 2

After Cindy’s doctor declared her to be free and clear of all cancer cells, he told her that if she went on a course of radiation therapy, her chances of continued good health and freedom from cancer would increase from 80% to 90%.

This presented a challenge to Cindy as she was also made aware of the side effects of radiation therapy, and she just plain didn’t want to do it. She felt the quality of her life was being interfered with.

Her family put quite a bit of pressure on her to go through with this course of action and after about a month of discussions she decided to do it. She called me before beginning and we planned how we could go about making the process as comfortable for her as possible.

First and foremost, she realized that she had to come into an accepting place where having this treatment was concerned. She was fully aware that if she didn’t, not only would the treatment not help her, but it might be detrimental.

She also presented me with paperwork she had received from the radiologist that explained the possible side effects from her 30-day course of treatment.

According to him, since the radiation would be focused on her throat, in the area where she had had the surgery, she was to expect to have burning on the exterior and interior of her throat, which would make swallowing difficult. 6

She would have a very dry mouth. This would lead to a decreased appetite because of the discomfort in swallowing. She would lose 10% of her body weight and would possibly have a feeding tube.

Her mouth would be so sore/burned that she would be unable to wear her denture. She was to expect her immune system to be compromised and she would be susceptible to colds and flu. She was to have a decrease in her energy, so she would need to spend a few days in bed. She would lose her voice.

Armed with this information, again I assisted Cindy to go into a deep state of hypnosis, and I checked in with her subconscious mind to see if it/she was willing to release any resistance to going through the radiation treatment.

Through ideomotor response (the lifting of one finger to indicate yes, and a different finger to indicate no) we found that her subconscious mind was not ready to release the resistance.

I got permission from her subconscious mind to do the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to help release the resistance and after two rounds took the resistance from an intensity level of 9 (with 10 being the most intense) to a 0. I then asked if we could proceed to counteract any and all side effects of the treatment and was told yes.

In wording the prescription (positive suggestions), I made sure to use positive or affirmative language, for instance, rather than saying “your throat will not burn”, I said, “your throat feels cool and comfortable at all times”.

I continued with suggestions such as “you have plenty of saliva so you can easily chew your food thoroughly and swallow with ease. All systems in your body are functioning perfectly allowing you to digest and assimilate the food you eat, and eliminate all waste easily, thereby giving you plenty of positive energy so you can continue to live your life the way you have in the past. Your vocal cords are in perfect condition and you can speak with anyone you desire, anytime you wish to.”

When checking in with her to see if she was comfortable with the process, she indicated yes, so I brought her back to a regular state of awareness and presented her with her tape, which she began to listen to immediately, again 7

twice a day for the 5 days before her treatment program was to begin, and continued to do so once a day during the process.

We kept in touch during that 30-day course of treatment. After about 2 and a half weeks, she began telling me that the people she saw every day who had started their treatments at the same time she did, were getting weaker.

As time went on, they had to be supported by a companion when going in or out of the treatment room, then they moved into using walkers and eventually some of them even entered the building in wheelchairs.

She continued to go to her treatments unassisted. The entire time she continued to walk three miles a day and do her Tai Chi workout/meditation.

Two days before her final treatment, when her session with the radiation technician ended, she stood before the mirror putting her dentures back into her mouth. (They had to be removed for the treatment each time).

The technician was standing behind her, so she turned around and asked him if there was some sort of problem. He asked her what she was doing, to which she replied, “It should be perfectly obvious, I’m putting in my dentures.”

He said, “but that’s impossible—after 28 days of radiation, you can’t be able to put those in your mouth.” She told him, “well, look at this.” And proceeded to take the dentures out and replace them two more times.

The technician was amazed and asked her how this could be, and of course she told him that she had used hypnotherapy to eliminate any side effects from her treatment.

A few months after her treatment was completed, she dropped me a note thanking me for the work we had done together and she added that one of the things the radiologist had told her that she had forgot to mention to me was that her taste buds would be gone—all food would taste like Styrofoam.

Although she was able to retain her taste for sweets, and her taste for most other foods came back very quickly … only “chocolate tasted like pepper—darn!” 8

And her tongue did hurt. She put this in the “progress report” that she had included with the note. The progress report had a list of the side effects she was told to expect, and opposite this list, another that listed what actually happened.

She wanted me to know about the discomfort in her tongue because we never mentioned it specifically in her session, so this told her that it really was the work we had done that took the rest of the side effects out of the picture.

Her results were as follows: Her voice was slightly raspy. Her saliva production increased and was thickened. Her throat was fine, inside and out. She walked three miles a day and did her Tai Chi throughout and after. Her dentures were fine, although her tongue hurt. She weighed exactly the same amount coming out of the course of treatment as she did going in. She never got sick once even though she was exposed to colds a couple of times in the waiting room of the treatment center.

All in all, she was extremely pleased with the results of our work together, and told me to “keep at it, it really works”.

Due to my experience with this client, I have never doubted that I am doing the work I was meant to do here. Working with Cindy I found my natural niche in hypnotherapy work and I’ll be forever grateful to her for her assistance.

Yvonne Schwab, CHT, HBCE

Certified Spiritual Counselor

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