| Description | From 1978 to 1988 Lina Temoshok studied patients with Melanoma, a lethal skin cancer
She found a shared behavior pattern Unable to express emotions (esp. anger, and rarely acknowledge fear and sadness), unfailingly pleasant (extremely nice), appeasing, which she called the "Type C Connection"
The article contains a nice reframe on that they might think that they wanted to have cancer.
A High percentage of patients used denial as coping strategy
These people were always devoted to pleasing their spouses, parents, siblings, friends and coworkers, Their identity seemed to depend on the acceptance of others, they were distanced from their own feelings.
Conclusions :
- Patients who demonstrated more Type C behavior had more aggressive and thicker Tumors
- Patients who were more able to express emotions (anger and sadness) had more lymphocytes (cancer killer cells) gathering at the sites of their tumors. Those less able had less of these cells
- Woman who were more stoic and men who felt helpless and hopeless in the initial response to their diagnosis were more likely to succumb to their disease
- Among 117 patients followed, we found significant associations between every significant emotional state and disease relapse or death |
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