Passive Acceptance of Alt-Med to Support to Ill and Dying - A Serious Conundrum

[RPG Advocate]

This thread is prompted by DeVega's threads regarding the Dr. Stephen Turoff. The forum on which this problem originated is a support forum for those with breast cancer, including those who are terminally ill. In such an environment, desperation thrives, and discussions of alternative therapies are certain to thrive, also. The problem is that this is a support forum, and as DeVega pointed out, effectively promoting a skeptical viewpoint is an extremely thorny matter.

Let's widen the discussion a bit to public venues, be they internet forums, patient information services, what-have-you, that have a conflicting interest in helping ill and potentially terminally ill people cope, and promoting rational thinking. For this discussion, I want to exclude those institutions that would stand to make a profit from selling alternative therapies. The conflict here is not born of malice or profit motive, but respect for suffering human beings. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the following thorny issues when thinking about promoting the rational viewpoint in this situation.

Perceived Arrogance

DeVega mentioned that any direct confrontation about alternative therapies may be perceived as arrogant, whether the person giving the advice intends it or not. I find it hard to disagree with this. This is a common problem with the rationalist viewpoint. While I might see myself as a white knight coming to save the day with my scientific evidence, the other person may just see an imposing, brutish guy on a horse. On the other hand, saying nothing out of respect also rankles, because saying nothing in a public venue may be construed as tacit support for therapies that are not effective.

The Forest, or the Trees?

The idea of tacit support brings me to my next point. If this scenario is repeated across thousands of venues, it might actually increase the popularity of alternative therapies, because desperate patients often report success due to the placebo effect, autosuggestion, or simply the random variation in the course of many chronic diseases. This is the forest view, that a focused capaign of rational thinking now could save or prolong many lives in the future. The problem, of course, is that the "trees", our ill patients, will be subject to emotional upheaval when we insist that these therapies don't work, often contrary to their subjective experiences.

Community Cohesion

This applies specifically to communities where the ill support each other, such as internet forums for specific ailments, and real-world support groups. If too much unwanted rationalism is injected into the volatile environment where people are already stressed by their illnesses, the community could fracture, causing people to withdraw and lose a support system. On the one hand, having one's beliefs challenged can often be a harrowing process, but I don't know if I would want the fact that I robbed someone of their support system on my conscience.

Should Degree of Potential Harm Matter?

One could certainly take a middle-of-the-road approach and say that some therapies require more dire warnings than others, based on the potential harm. The advantage here is that the worst cases will have a lot of challenges, and thus others browsing the forum, reading the literature, talking to health care workers. will be more likely to avoid therapies that pose the most serious dangers. The disadvantage is that scammers who "nickel-and-dime" their way to fortune by charging a small per-session fee and seeing a lot of patients will be able to target their victims virtually unchallenged.

*

It's a delicate matter, to be sure. How do you think people in support roles should proceed in situations like these? Please take a moment to vote in the poll with the following question:

POLL QUESTION: Given a support environment like the one described in this post, what degree of harm that could be potentially wrought by a proposed alternative therapy would prompt you to attempt to actively dissaude a person seeking that therapy from proceeding with that therapy (check all that apply. If you believe any alternative therapy should be met with an active attempt to dissuade, check all the options)?

 

[DeVega]

Wow RPG - you have laid out the dilemma really well...

I can see that you really did understand where I was coming from!
Thanks so much. It will be interesting to see how people vote.

All best
DeVega

(who doesn't want to be the first to vote!)

 

[Goshawk]

I think you need a clarification: You need to separate "people who are ill" from "people who are terminal".

I don't think anyone would quibble that folks who are actively dying of something are entitled to pursue whatever therapies will ease their going, no matter how wack. So I think you need to restrict the poll--to be useful--to "people who are not terminally ill".

 

[Nex]

Thanks for posting this, RPG Advocate. This subject is a very important and difficult one for me.

I don't have much else to say at this time-- I'm going to sit back and watch the responses. I'm too new to active skepticism to add much yet.

 

[DeVega]

Indeed Goshawk -

- except that the division between those who have a life-threatening illness and those who are terminally ill is not always well defined - that is, a person may have a life-threatening illness and believe themselves to be terminally ill (and indeed may actually be terminally ill but not been officially diagnosed as terminal) BUT then go on to recover...

Sorry, I realise that might fudge the issue somewhat. I guess we can just define it as "a person who believes they are terminal."

Cheers
DeVega

PS: Also, conditions which may not actually be life threatening can still be horribly painful and debilitating enough to make a person despair.

Terribly difficult issue to think about I know.

 

[Open Mind]

Delay of Scientifically Accepted Medical Care
Discontinuance of Scientifically Accepted Medical Care

I voted for these, but I do not see conflict necessarily, complimentary medicine can be viewed as ‘complimentary’ not actually an alternative

I very much disagree in principle with telling terminally ill people (or even people with just chronic illness) that the medical profession cannot help further to avoid complimentary medicine……

I know you guys have probably been reading Quackwatch (run by Dr Stephen Barrett of CSICOP) ….have you considered the possibility the information you are reading could be rather one-sided or biased to some degree?

Personally, I did not vote for any of the other options …….such as …….

Monetary Loss ($1-$99)
Monetary Loss ($100-$999)
Monetary Loss ($1000-$9999)
Monetary Loss ($10000+)

I'm tempted to vote for monetary loss over $1000 but I won't even do that. I’m certainly not happy with therapists charging lot of money for an unproven medicine. But that is not the question being asked here, it is being asked whether I would stop another person paying a lot of money who is trying to save their life? How can you place an upper limit on someone trying to save or improve their life? How much would you pay to try and save or improve your own life? Is dying and saving money for relatives in a last will and testament really more important than life? It’s an individual choice.

Proposed Therapy Purports to be Paranormal
Proposed Therapy Purports to Heal by Religious Faith

I was speaking to man last year who was losing vision. to glaucoma (the optic nerve is not supposed to recover). He underwent an operation to save his sight and went completely blind in one eye afterwards …. He remained blind in that eye for over a year…….. he visited a psychic healer (a spiritualist who also charged nothing) and later that day noticed he could see light in the blind eye, gradually more and more vision began to return. His vision was far from perfect and still damaged but ithad recovered enough from him to walk down the street with the good eye covered.

Very similar story to the above one ….. . my grandmother when around 12 years old was blinded in both eyes for months due to a childhood infection, after being healed by a priest, her vision gradually returned in one eye (in the other eye a physician had operated and it remained blind all her life) …… She retained vision in the healed eye till the end of her life ……

Would you assume the mass of anecdotal reports like this throughout history are to be stamped coincidence and ban such healing practice because it doesn’t fit with a skeptic’s theory of the universe?

Proposed Therapy is Homeopathic

Even if this is just the placebo effect, could it still might be of benefit?

Therapy may Cause Additional Somatic Symptoms

And medical drugs don’t? I thought side effects of conventional medicine killed thousands every year? Is an orthodox side effect allowable and any alternative medicine side effect cause to ban it?

Therapy may Directly Exacerbate Underlying Disease

Does radiotherapy damage the immune system? Doesn't radiation genrally cause cancerous cells? Should we therefore ban radiotherapy (of course not)

Hastened Death of Terminally Ill Patient

I think it is possible radiotherapy will have hastened the death for some cancer sufferers. I also doubt there is much evidence complimentary medicine (being generally much weaker) when properly followed has hastened deaths, I’m sure it often fails miserably … but to claim it has hastened deaths requires proof.

Likelihood that Therapist is a Conscious Fraud Rather than Deluded

I am troubled by the term ‘likelihood?’ Is proof not better? Are we to ban therapies on likelihood?

Creation of False Hope of Recovery

How does anyone know what is ‘false hope’? … this only means the medical doctor doesn’t know how to cure it …it's like saying .. If conventional medicine cannot cure you, you cannot be cured, don’t try anything else, go away accept being ill and die …what sort of mentality is this to give seriously ill people? …..I would say if the medical profession tells you are going to die, for goodness sake try something else!!! …. ….. Docs do come across cases where someone recovers from a condition deemed ‘incurable’……. But they ignore these cases, they are far too busy to try and find out why, conventional medicine is interested in statistical benefits for the masses not in isolated inexplicable cases.

Now let me briefly talk about Psychic Surgery that raised this survey. My personal opinion is that if a psychic surgeon’s knife could be sterilized by paranormal power as claimed …. then the need for an operation using a surgeons knife is not necessary at all because the paranormal power that sterilizes, seals wounds, etc would be easier directed straight at tumour without the need of scalpels, etc. ….therefore it is a probably conjuring trick (i.e. no cut made, no sterilization necessary). …

… Am I going to assume every claim of psychic surgery ever made throughout history is fraudulent? No, it depends on the claim, psychic surgery doesn’t just mean cutting open the skin, in those cases I am very sceptical ……

...... However psychic surgery is going to work in some cases even if fraudulent …… a fairly recent trial where conventional surgeons did a fake knee operations on people who thought they had undergone conventional knee surgery ….. conclusion? The placebo, fake surgery worked as well, in this case, as the real operation, the patients reported benefit.

This raises a big question if placebo/fake surgery can help people reduce knee pain ….. are you guys sure in you are correct to go on cancer forums telling people suffering from cancer forum not to seek any complimentary medicine? Didn’t at least one trial show those with positive beliefs lived longer?

Hmmm….

 

[Nex]

OpenMind, the OP doesn't mention banning.

Originally posted by OpenMind
Docs do come across cases where someone recovers from a condition deemed ‘incurable’……. But they ignore these cases, they are far too busy to try and find out why, conventional medicine is interested in statistical benefits for the masses not in isolated inexplicable cases.

Like, oh I don't know... Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man? He wasn't cured of anything, I know, so it's not a perfect analogy, but he's been a subject of interest for over a hundred years. Proteus syndrome isn't exactly a mass affliction.

Also, if you remember, we did have a thread here about this girl, who survived rabies infection. I haven't seen a follow-up in the papers (imagine that!) but I'll wager a pretty penny or three that there's an investigation going on to determine which antiviral agents did the trick, or which combination of them. Most likely, someone's writing the grant right now...

Just like any other profession, doctors and medical researchers do have an interest in that which is odd, weird, or currently unexplainable. These things naturally pique the curiosity, whether it's a rare or unknown illness or seemingly miraculous recovery.

Why don't you give a telephone call to any major teaching and research hospital and ask about your statement here? Let us know what they say.



*edited for typos, and to add link*

 

[Goshawk]

I guess we can just define it as "a person who believes they are terminal."

Ermm...well, no, I don't think that works, either. There are lots of people out there who *think* they're dying, but who are in reality perfectly healthy. (They're known technically as "hypochondriacs" ).

A definition that works for me would be, "People who have received an official diagnosis from a reputable physician that they have a terminal, incurable illness."

And then I would go on to edit the poll into distinguishing between *these* people--the people who really are going to die fairly soon of their illness--and people who merely have an incurable, not-necessarily-terminal-or-fatal illness.

 

[DeVega]

Open Mind - I do agree with you on some points...

I personally am not so troubled by the money aspect. If people want to seek out complimentary therapies and pay for them that is their decision - they can spend as much money as they like. Because we are skeptical and do not believe most of these things work it does not make us responsible. And indeed, who would deem to take hope from a terminally ill patient? That would be unfeeling arrogance. When I was in treatment for cancer I had both acupuncture and shiatsu during the 8 months of chemo. The Shiatsu I found particularly good and it helped tremendously with the rather horrible side-effects of chemo. I didn't necessarily swallow all the underlying philosophy but that does not effect the result.

However, I find your assessment of the whole Psychic Surgeon thing shocking! It appears clear to me that these guys do cause actual bodily harm and excasabate (sp?) the diseases the patients are suffering in the first place. (Did you watch the sample film clip which showed how he treated that lady with cereberal palsy? Bloody roughly!) Are you saying that anyone who merely considers themselves to be psychic should be allowed to continue in this vein? Put it this way - if you have children, would you let this man near them with his dirty scalpel? No, I suspect not.

But I know we are talking about adults here with every right to form their own opinions. I would only close in mentioning that when people were informed of the facts and shown footage of Turoff in practice - they were shocked. They reached an adult, INFORMED opinion.

Perhaps that is the crux of the issue. All the conventional treatments I have had: chemo, rads and surgery - have been explained to me in detail, the side-effects discussed and where necessary, drugs given to combat those side effects. However, at any time - having been supplied with the information - I could opt out of that treatment if I so chose...

Peace
DeVega

 

[DeVega]

Goshawk...

No, I meant - people who have a life-threatening illness (like cancer or HIV) which may remain stable or may develop futher. Their doctors may not use the word 'terminal' until the very last thing has been tried...

Interestingly I'd guess that psychics maybe do get a high proportion of hypocondriacs - that would be an interesting statistic. Maybe then we could say they were doing a service by taking a burden off the NHS!

DeVega (the hair-splitter!)

 

[Darat]

I've only voted for three options above but I could have voted for nearly all of them apart from these:

Proposed Therapy Purports to be Paranormal
Proposed Therapy Purports to Heal by Religious Faith
Proposed Therapy is Homeopathic

I'm not interested in how something is said to be helping but whether it is or not (in the circumstances outlined in the OP).

As for the rest of the options, for me the deciding factor would be if I thought harm was being done to the person. This harm could be caused by spending money on a treatment that would then mean they couldn't afford the real (i.e. proven effective) treatment or it could be that they are taking herbal "medicines" that could interfere with other, necessary drugs. That would be doing the person harm and then I’d want to try to help the person understand that their choice is harming them. (This “helping them to understand” isn’t a matter debating a “alternative treatment” in quite the way we would tend to debate such matters here, once you leave the general for the specific I think you have to behave in a very different manner.)

All in all it is a balance; I don't think there is a formulae or a given set of rules that can be applied in these types of circumstances to determine the best option of when to say something or not to.

On a support forum I also think considerations of the “greater good” have to be added into the balance. If something is known to be wrong/bad/a scam/dangerous then not saying something may not just affect the one person who has said they are using that treatment but indeed encourage others to use or try it. I think then there is a moral obligation to point out the problem or how dangerous going down that route can be. Supporting someone is not about substituting saccharine for the truth or always sugar coating the truth, there is some truth in the saying that “sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind”.

 

[Open Mind]

However, I find your assessment of the whole Psychic Surgeon thing shocking! …………………. Are you saying that anyone who merely considers themselves to be psychic should be allowed to continue in this vein?

Just to clarify ‘psychic surgery’ doesn’t have a definite meaning, the term has also been used in the past for claims where the body has supposedly been instantly healed with no tools, no cuts, no force. The more modern use of the term and the one used in this forum is referring to the use of surgical tools to cut open the body when the psychic is supposedly in a ‘trance’ state. This practice is highly controversial even amongst psychic healers. I would guess about 0.0001% of psychic healers do what Stephen Turoff or several Brazilian psychic surgeons claim to do.

The general terminology goes something like this…

‘Spiritual Healing’ – This is the laying on of hands as done by spiritualists – they believe a spirit doctors and others return to direct healing to body , religious faith is not essential
‘Faith Healing’ - Christian belief that faith heals, although the term has been in modern times used by some evangelist like ministers or priests pushing bodies to the floor and promising cures – that does not represent what it was previously though.
‘Reiki Healing’ – New Age term. No dead people or faith required – the person thinks symbols heal
‘Magnetic healing’ – Another New Age term, the belief an energy flows from one body to another on joining hands

So Turoff doesn’t fall neatly into any of these far more common categories ….. he claims to be in trance and that dead doctors are entering his body to perform surgery…… yes this sounds a spiritualistic belief …. However …..any healer practicing within any UK spiritualist church must pass 2 years of SNU qualifications/exams (a) ) Psychic surgery is not allowed (unless it involves no physical manipulation or tools or observable action) (b) Healing in trance state in not allowed (a state where supposedly a dead person controls tbody) (c) The laying on of hands must rest gently upon the body or slightly off body. They are not allowed to slide hands over body or touch certain parts of body to be misconstrued in meaning (d) Unqualified healers must be accompanied by qualified healer following regulations (e) They must be no claim to cure or diagnose and encourage people to seek the best of medical help (f) They accept optional donations for church funds, but no payment required at all ………..

Now that doesn’t sound dangerous to me, no scalpels, no cuts, no blood, no physical force, no promises, no charge …… so I think it is a bit unfair to include Turoff and the Brazilians type psychic surgeons into the same category. I cannot comment on Turoff as I have never met or seen the man …. If you find evidence of fraud, in the UK there is a ‘fraudulent mediums act’ that can be brought into action.

Put it this way - if you have children, would you let this man near them with his dirty scalpel? No, I suspect not.

I would take any seriously ill child to a doctor first, a doctor second and a doctor third. (For more than one medical opinion) . After accurate diagnosis and treatment I would consider adding complimentary medicine too….. would I consider psychic surgery? I would require proof first, and a considerable degree of it beyond any conjuring explanation.

I’ve been investigating psychic phenomena for over 25 years (not much in recent years though) …. I’m not an armchair skeptic, I have investigated claimed phenomena (and in my opinion some rare claims are genuine …. Which makes me unpopular in here LOL ) ……. So I did go to see a Brazilian psychic surgeon out of pure curiosity years ago … however he wasn’t allowed to practice it in the UK for some reason and for what he did instead required those to sign a form agreeing to the treatment. …. I wasn’t impressed by him.

Perhaps that is the crux of the issue. All the conventional treatments I have had: chemo, rads and surgery - have been explained to me in detail, the side-effects discussed and where necessary, drugs given to combat those side effects. However, at any time - having been supplied with the information - I could opt out of that treatment if I so chose...

Peace
DeVega

DeVega, I would say take the best of conventional medicine as you are doing ….. avoid stress (hope my post didn’t cause you any) …... Eat a good, careful diet …. And never, ever, give up positive expectations of good health ……

…. Sincere best wishes for your continued good health.

 

[DeVega]

Thank-you very much Open-Mind

For the clarification. It seems to me that Mr Turoff has just cherry picked a bit of everything eh?! I did not know that Spritual Healers in the UK went through any formalised training - I think that's a really good move (even though I don't believe in it myself) and at least gives those who do attend them some measure of reassurance.

I do think that most healers really do believe in what they are doing. Even though I am skeptical I don't have a dismissive attitude to complimentary therapies and the practitioners of them. And I DO believe that the mind is a powerful weapon in a personal fight with disease. I did visualistations throughout my treatment and it helped me immensely to feel I was in the fight for my own health and not passively waiting for others (the oncologists & surgeon) to heal me. But I don't believe in the visualisations as anything 'supernatural' - Maybe I was particularly good at them as I'm a fantasy author! I always have had an active imagination & these days I get paid for it!

Thanks for your good wishes - I am currently in the rudest of health!
DeVega

 

[rppa]

To me it seems almost self-evident that state of mind and visualization should have an effect on healing, and more than a little woo-woo to think otherwise. After all, the brain controls EVERYTHING, and if you believe that the mind is independent of the body, then somehow you think of your consciousness as this free floating thing outside of your brain, separate from your physical self.

I don't believe that. The mind controls all the chemistry, the emotional state has a huge effect on the chemistry. Studies connecting stress and disease to me are confirming the obvious.

As far as the question that opened this discussion: when the rubber hit the road, I guess I was a passive acceptor. A beloved aunt was diagnosed with terminal cancer many years ago, and when it finally metastasized she decided to walk away from the chemo and attempt to get as much quality of life in the last few months as she could. She consulted with alternative therapists and with Dr. Bernie Siegel, she appeared to have achieved some level of comfort, she followed a lifelong dream of learning to play the cello, and at no time did I ever feel tempted to try to dissuade her from alternative therapy. (I like Siegel and wouldn't dissuade anyone from talking to him at any rate). It worked for her emotionally, she knew she was dying, her last few months were good ones.

Certainly there are predators who prey on cancer patients and who do genuine harm, who shorten lifetimes. I didn't feel that was happening here.

Years before that when I was an adolescent, I lost a very young cousin to leukemia (it was still overwhelmingly a death sentence at the time). Her parents tried every conceivable experimental medical therapy and some of them, I was told, were extremely painful and had virtually no hope of succeeding. This bothered me immensely and started me thinking, even at that young age, that maybe sometimes the preferable way to spend the last year of one's life wasn't necessarily locked into hospital rooms, but to be allowed to die on one's own terms. I wouldn't have wanted to see them drag her off to shady Mexican clinics, but I didn't approve of the path they did take.

 

[Ashles]

However …..any healer practicing within any UK spiritualist church must pass 2 years of SNU qualifications/exams

But this means nothing scientifically or in terms of actual healing ability.
A 'qualified' healer will have no more actual ability than someone off the street, and it may give the healer some kind of 'confidence' in their abilities over and above merely that of support provider. That seems to me to be where it might become dangerous.
It doesn't take much of a search of alternative therapy forums to see that, despite the claims, many practitioners and proponents frequently DON'T recommend conventional medicine in the first instance.
This is dangerous.

Would you assume the mass of anecdotal reports like this throughout history are to be stamped coincidence and ban such healing practice because it doesn’t fit with a skeptic’s theory of the universe?

Any amount of solely anecdotal evidence is useless (except as a starting point for a theory). To see it otherwise is a waste of everyone's time.
And no-one is considering banning anything because it doesn't fit in with our viewpoint. That's just a total lie. And one often trotted out by the believers.
Such healing practice don't fit in with current scientific thinking and have not been shown to exist in any way. That is why they are criticised. It's nothing to do with personal views of the universe.

Relaxation and placebo effect are already well known about and those alternative healers who claim nothing more than the benefit of these effects are probably a great addition to conventional medicine.

If any healer could genuinely do anything more they would be an enormous asset to medicine. But it appears they can't really, so giving them qualifications in this seems rather pointless.
Some form of accreditation and councilling skils would be more useful. If only from a legal point of view to stop anyone who feels like it offering 'healing' in any circumstnces..

Peole who are extremely/terminally ill will cling to anything to give them hope and the alternative therapies may have a place here to ease mental anguish. And sometimes these people may recover through natural remission, or the conventional medicine working or their own immune system suddenly having a boost etc.

But to then turn around and use these desperate hopes and unlikely recoveries as some kind of 'evidence' for these abilities is quite unpleasant really.

Extreme situations might call for sceptics to be silent when a belief in something paranormal is helping someone cling to something and aiding them in a terrile time.

But that doesn't mean we have to pretend these 'abilities' are real the rest of the time.

When the monetary expense becomes high these healers are certainly not doing it for the benefit of the patient any more.
It is out and out fraud of very vulnerable people, and quite despicable.

 

[Darat]

To me it seems almost self-evident that state of mind and visualization should have an effect on healing, and more than a little woo-woo to think otherwise.

...snip...

But it appears that positive attitude doesn’t have any affect on survival rates:

No mind over matter

New Scientist vol 176 issue 2369 - 16 November 2002, page 22


PLUCKINESS can't help you defeat cancer after all.

A Scottish team looked at 26 studies on whether a patient's outlook affects survival. Ten of the studies examined the widely held belief that "fighting spirit" can help people live longer. Another 12 examined the opposite - whether people died sooner if their outlook was pessimistic.

Mark Petticrew's team at the Medical Research Council's Public Health Services Unit in Glasgow concluded that neither affects the final outcome (BMJ, vol 325, p 1066).

But Petticrew still urges people to stay optimistic. "There are lots of reasons to have a positive mental attitude other than survival, such as better quality of life and avoidance of anxiety and depression," he says.

(I don't know if more up-to-date work has been done that refutes this.)

 

[DeVega]

There is also a danger in the idea that PMA

(Positive Mental Atittude) can help one overcome something like cancer. If someone has a recurrence or they have not responded to treatment, this oft repeated mantra of 'mind over matter' becomes a stick to beat themselves with. I have heard people berate themselves that they weren't thinking positively enough or if they had 'tried harder' and been more positive - maybe their cancer would have been defeated. It's a horrible opposite of Survivor Guilt (something I occasionally struggle with.)

Having said that PMA can only be a good thing - both for the patient and those around them who may also be struggling to cope. Pluckiness maybe cannot help you to survive - but it can stop you from hiding in the wardrobe! It is dammed hard sometimes - interestingly (but not surprisingly) many of the women I know with cancer are on anti-depressent drugs.

Perhaps all we have really established is that people find their own methods of coping. However, I share everyone's concern about people cashing in on this search for something to help patients cope...

 

[RPG Advocate]

Let me get one thing out of the way first. I'm loathe to use legislation to ban things in this area. Legislation tends not to be tailored to specific practices that are causing problems, and may inadvertantly ban something that works. Most of the worst offenders are commiting criminal acts in the course of their work, so they'll be ferreted out that way.

The most interesting thing to come out of this discussion is in regards to complimentary medicine. The reason I'm critical of complimentary therapies--even for people the medical establishment can no longer help--is that based on the actual evidence, these therapies are not shown to do anything more than provide an emotional benefit, which as DeVega has shown, can be achieved by drawing on one's inner strength. Additionally, I would bet DeVega's visualizations aided her in coming to grips with her cancer. It's harder to get this benefit with therapy that relies on an extrenal source. There are also others who can help in this way. I've had the unfortunate occasion to come in contact with local hospice workers. They are remarkable people. For a terminally ill patient, a good hospice can be an extrordinary source of support and dignity in those final weeks.

The thing with totally free self-empowerment* is that it's hard to communicate to others how to get those emotional benefits anywhere, anytime, without spending any money, since most likely the exact visualizations that worked for DeVega wouldn't work for anyone else, since her routine was likely based on a degree of self-knowledge that can't be taught. This is where other complimentary treatments come in. They purport to work for anyone. I think this gives perhaps at least one possible answer to the question of what to say without sounding arrogant. Recommending some serious introspection couldn't hurt anyone. People will likely have to learn to supplant the external therapies on their own, but making a positive suggestion that could prove beneficial is better than saying nothing.

________________
* That sounds like such a woo-woo term.

 

[Darat]

Re: There is also a danger in the idea that PMA

(Positive Mental Atittude) can help one overcome something like cancer. If someone has a recurrence or they have not responded to treatment, this oft repeated mantra of 'mind over matter' becomes a stick to beat themselves with. I have heard people berate themselves that they weren't thinking positively enough or if they had 'tried harder' and been more positive - maybe their cancer would have been defeated. It's a horrible opposite of Survivor Guilt (something I occasionally struggle with.)

I've also known someone who felt they had contributed to their disease progression because they hadn't been "positive enough". I found it very upsetting, but it's a very hard subject to tackle because there seems (IMO) to be a general expectation of someone in these sorts of terrible circumstances to be "positive" all the time.

Having said that PMA can only be a good thing - both for the patient and those around them who may also be struggling to cope. Pluckiness maybe cannot help you to survive - but it can stop you from hiding in the wardrobe! It is dammed hard sometimes - interestingly (but not surprisingly) many of the women I know with cancer are on anti-depressent drugs.

Perhaps all we have really established is that people find their own methods of coping. However, I share everyone's concern about people cashing in on this search for something to help patients cope...

But it should also be stressed that having a NMA isn't a bad thing - if that is how you cope. It is, as you say, about finding a way that works for you. If being positive gets you through the day then that is great but if it is being a surly bad tempered git that gets you through the day then that is also great.

 

[Loon]

I think the major question is whether the treatment will harm the patient. While I marked that I would say something for treatments relying on religious belief or those costing a lot of money, this really depends on the case.

I'm not going to tell someone that praying for heavenly guidance for their oncologist is bad, nor will I tell a real estate tycoon not to spend $10 K on something that makes him happy.

The hard part is seeing the scammer make out well in the bargain, but if that is necessary to alleviate someone else's suffering, even a little bit, then so be it.