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This timely book marks the emergence of psychotherapy as a potent weapon in the all out war against cancer, the number two killer disease. Goldberg, the editor, has organized 17 chapters by 19 authors in five sections, starting with theory and ending with group and family treatment.
As recently'as 1965, a paper* drew this response from a physician: “We may not even dare think of emotional factors in cancer at our institution.” And this from a surgeon: “Even if you proved it for the next ten years, I wouldn't believe it.” But despite the conservative politics of cancer, the book affirms that it is no longer heresy to see the importance of emotions in a disease regarded as the most organic of all organic diseases.
In a sensitive foreword, Hyman Spotnitz touches on similarities in the personality features of schizophrenic and cancer patients and predicts a more widespread use of psychotherapy in the treatment of cancer. The survival function of psychosis during cortisone treatment of serious organic diseases has been described by the reviewer elsewhere. There is an apparent reciprocal relationship between schizophrenia and cancer: they seem mutually incompatible. Mailer's phrase, “Cancer is madness denied,” is clinically valid. The book suggests that