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Emotional factors have been linked to cancer for centuries, and more studies continue to appear on the subject. Extreme skepticism prevails against the acceptance of emotions in the “most organic of all organic diseases.” In Psychosomatic Medicine in the Seventies: An Overview (Lipowski, 1977), several articles on emotional factors in cancer are described, but there is no reference to psychotherapy.
Although evidence for stress-induced tumors in laboratory mice has been demonstrated, proof of emotional factors causing cancer in humans seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Despite the priority accorded to tangible carcinogenic factors, current investigations do include the psychological in the list of predictive factors. In a long range psychosocial study on medical school freshmen it was found that those who developed cancer had given a history of family alienation (Thomas, 1973).
Emotions are in the mainstream of the vast research on brain function. The major psychoses, mood, memory, affects, impulses, dreams, fantasy and even thought are seen as associated with biochemical processes. It is out of date to regard emotions as unreal abstractions. All psychic experiences and attitudes, including faith, belief, hope, love and hate coincide with real neuroelectric and chemical events in the nervous system, especially at the synaptic junctions. Researchers promise exciting new discoveries in the accelerating field of neurotransmissions and neuroinhibitions (Lester, 1977). We can hope for informational links between inhibited