CONSIDER THIS

BOOK EXCERPT:
Imagery and Healing, by Jeanne Achterberg

"Leonard Derogatis and his colleagues...found that long-term survivors within a sample of metastatic breast cancer patients evidenced more emotion such as anxiety, depression, and guilt than did the short-term survivors. Also related to survival was a poorer adjustment to the illness, as perceived by the treating oncologists, and a significantly poorer attitude toward their physicians. The short-term survivors, on the other hand, were characterized by lower levels of hostility and higher levels of positive mood. The long-term survivors, the exceptional patients who shook their fists in the face of death, were fighters. Should we be surprised that their immune systems fight? Or that passive persons, the real sweethearts who die before their time, have immune systems that are also passive?"