Breast Biopsy Quotes

In one study, psychologists interviewed patients admitted to hospital for breast biopsy, without knowing the pathology results. Researchers were able to predict the presence of cancer in up to 94 per cent of cases judging by such psychological factors alone.

A 1982 German study presented at the fourth international Symposium on the Prevention and Detection of Cancer in London found certain personality traits to have a strong association with breast cancer. Fifty-six women admitted to hospital for biopsy were evaluated for characteristics such as emotional suppression, rationalization, altruistic behavior, the avoidance of conflict, and the superautonomous self-sufficiency we saw embodied by Caroline. Based on the interview results alone, both the interviewers and “blind” raters who had no direct contact with the women were able to predict the correct diagnosis in up to 94 percent of all cancer patients, and in about 70 percent of the benign cases.

In a previous British study at King’s College Hospital in London, it had also been shown that women with cancerous breast lumps characteristically exhibited “extreme suppression of anger and of other feelings” in “a significantly higher proportion” than the control group, which was made up of women admitted for biopsy at the same time but found to have benign breast tumors.

There was a very interesting Australian study that looked at a number of women who had lumps suspicious for breast cancer, so they had to have biopsies. And they put these women through a psychological questionnaire before the results came back. And after the results came back, it turned out if a woman was emotionally isolated, that by itself did not increase the risk of that lump being cancerous. Similarly, if a woman was stressed, that by itself did not increase the risk of that lump being cancerous. But if a woman was stressed and emotionally isolated the risk of that lump being cancerous was nine times as great as the average. And the physicians and the scientists who did the study couldn't understand this because how do 0 and 0 add up to 9? But if, for example, you were stressed right now, which means there are high levels of stress hormones in your body, cortisol and adrenaline, but a friend of you next to you said "hey, how are you feeling? Do you want to talk about it?", the stresses would go right down. But if you are emotionally isolated and you are stressed then your cortisol level will stay high for a long time and cortisol suppresses the immune system, which means that malignancies are more likely to develop. Which means that cancer is not a disease of the individual. The development of cancer in the individual reflects a lifetime and history of relationships through family, culture and society. Which then might explain to us, for example, if you look at black Americans.. they are more likely to get prostrate cancer and more likely to die of it and not because of lack of medical care. And black women are more likely to die of breast cancer even if they have access to good medical care. Why is that? Well.. maybe there is something about being a minority in this particular culture, that it is so highly stressful, that it deranges the immune system. So is it an individual problem, again? Or is it a social problem? So what I'm saying is that you can't separate the mind from the body and you can't separate the individual from the environment. And the only way of looking at human beings is a bio-psycho-social view, which is to say that the biology can't be separated from the psychology and that can't be separated from the social environment.