UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM

Much of our treatment program focuses on the Autonomic Nervous System because when this system is healthy, so are you. We would like to suggest that you read the article we have prepared to help you understand this important system.
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The Psychopathology of the Breast Cancer Prone Behavior Pattern

by James A. Arond-Thomas, M.D.
Sara Agree Schreiber, Ph.D.

The knowledge of dysfunctional behavior patterns is not new. Scientists have long ago concluded that certain inter-personal behavior patterns evoke certain physiological behaviors. Modern diseases such as cancer and heart disease fall within this category. The course of breast cancer in women demonstrates certain physiological patterns of behaviors. These behaviors are the reflection of a breast cancer prone behavior pattern acted out from the beginning of life.

As an infant, the breast cancer prone woman was unable to increase her capacity for and experience of relying on the most authentic parts of herself. This was due to her significant (m)other's requirement that she behave in certain prescribed ways. She learned, for example, that loving attention (or whatever "form" that loving took in that household) would be unavailable if she experienced and desired her own most authentic emotions and needs.

Simultaneously, she learned that she "should" instead experience the emotions and needs of her significant (m)other or key person in her life. She learned through cues and sometimes through direct outbursts, that she must - in order to gratify her need for validation - "do the right thing". This, of course, only heightened the pain associated with her own unmet authentic emotions and needs. Her trap was this: if she did not comply with the wishes and needs of the significant (m)other, she feared annihilation from without. If she did comply, she experienced devaluation from within.

It is difficult to develop a sense of self-esteem when faced with such a conflict. The ego feels bombarded, and seeks shelter behind a host of psychological defenses. In a sense, the ego goes underground. Resentment from doing the "right thing" grows within this young girl, and through the need to survive in this household, she learns that she does not dare expose this aggression. Instead, it becomes directed inward toward the self.

Directing her resentment inward, rather than outward toward her "source" of loving affection and attention, is psychologically safer, and protects her from her fear of abandonment and annihilation. The major feature of the breast cancer prone behavior pattern is this "self-directed aggression". The onset of self-directed aggression in early childhood opens the door to a lifetime of despair, self-depreciation and self-abuse. Self-directed aggression is an unconscious process which labels her as "rejectable", an event which provokes both shame and more resentment. When she unconsciously accepts herself as rejectable, she no longer attempts to gain the admiration, approval, and support from a significant (m)other or key person in her life. She now believes that she is unable to achieve what she wants and needs in a significant interaction. Instead, she finds herself pervasively "doing the right thing" (i.e., whatever it is that will "please' another).

When she does other than "the right thing", she feels shame and guilt; and, most significantly, doing other than the right thing exacerbates her fear of abandonment. By doing the right thing, her "false-self" becomes the dominant force in her personality. She becomes flooded with feelings of despair, rage, shame, helplessness, and hopelessness.

She protects herself from this flood of feelings by unconsciously deploying a series of intrapsychic defensive maneuvers. She becomes an expert at denial. Her denial is a strong, if not one of the strongest defensive maneuvers she has. Because of her unconscious need and drive for denial, any hope of manifesting her authentic self recedes even deeper into her psyche. Her false self or projected self, the self that does the right thing, takes over.

Since she brings a false self to her adult relationships, she has a reduced capacity to fuse sexually with a key other person, and is thus limited in her experience of sexual intimacy to only giving pleasure to another. She denies her capacity for and her need for healthy, sexual gratification. Indeed, she feels shame at such a prospect. Earlier in her life, it is likely that she failed to receive loving and pleasurable stimulation from another for her authentic qualities. Rather, what she received was often the other person's projections of how she was. Thus, it is her failure to be loved for her own authentic self that is the source of her shame. Experiences of projected loving usually resulted instead in emotional discomfort, intensified tension, the experience of rejection, and the unconscious desire to reject the affection.

Rejecting the affection is safer. In the heat of passion with a significant other, however, her behavior often reflects the psychological use of the reaction-formation defense. With this defense, she appears passionate and fulfilled on the outside, while feeling empty, helpless, and hungry on the inside. Like a soiled piece of goods, she feels rendered null and void by her shame, helplessness, and resentment.

The breast cancer prone behavior pattern hinges upon the mother's requirement that her infant be available to meet her needs rather than the mother being available to meet the needs, desires, and wishes of the infant. The infant, therefore, adapts. She develops an ability to conform to the shape of her environment. Her desire to conform to her environment is the result of her dreaded fear of abandonment and annihilation.

She learns that she will not gain nurturance for her authentic self so she learns to express herself through her false or adapted self. She reveals only what is expected, as a manifestation of that child's loneliness and impotence. As she more and more learns to "do the right thing" by responding to the needs of the (m)other, this child begins to experience a pervasive sense of emptiness and futility which further enhances her fear of loss of loving, and her fear of loss of stability.

There are several different ways in which the infant may respond to the love that her mother offers her. Firstly, she may experience engulfment, which promotes alienation from the infant's self needs and emotions. Thus she develops into a child who must do the right thing, and she learns that her primary needs and emotions are those that she "should" experience. Secondly, she learns that behavior and rules are synonymous. Spontaneity is infrequent, and the best way to be is to wait and see what another expects, and then to respond to those expectations. In other words, she grows into an adult with a fully developed "false self".

How is this different from the infant who grows into maturity with an authentic self? This infant experiences support through reinforcement of the infant's own self needs and emotions. This child confidently expects mother or the key person in her life to remove her instinctual tension. She learns that she may be spontaneous, and may develop and grow according to her specific wishes and desires, and may try out different ways of behaving with no fear of abandonment, rejection, or annihilation.

She grows into adulthood with the capacity to take risks and make judgments for the good of her own self, and for the good of those persons with whom she has an alliance. She is invested neither in shame nor in denial, and she does not harbor resentment nor does she make moral judgments. She makes decisions based on her need to have a life that is free from stress and from failures. She grows into an adult who lives according to an authentic inner blueprint.

A breast cancer prone woman is unable to assimilate behavioral experiences of mothering as loving, and does not confidently expect that mothering will remove her instinctual tension, although she yearns for it greatly. Instead, she wears in her body her fears of abandonment and nurturance failure. When one lives in constant fear of abandonment, one establishes a series of compromise behaviors. These behaviors include: Rejection of the pursuit of self-values in an effort to prohibit the loss of loving.

Rejection of the pursuit of self-values leads to her inability to rely on her own emotions.

As a result of 1&2, she develops an absent sense of what her needs are.

The first three then lead to an alienation from her authentic inner blueprint.

This woman thus relies on a significant other as a regulator of her self concept.

She learns to idealize the significant other.

By idealizing another, she contributes to her own lack of worth and lack of self confidence and self assuredness.

As a result, this woman has little faith in her ability to succeed on her own.

Finally, she believes that her life is uncontrollable, that she will not find gratification, and that she must suffer alone through her plight.

The above list of behaviors describes a pervasive fear of annihilation, accompanied by shame, humiliation, hopelessness, despair, and self-hatred. If one places no faith in the self, and one places all of her resources and faith in another, it follows that there is little left for one to draw upon if the other fails you. Furthermore, when there is an absence of parental admiration for one's true self, there is a limited chance for this person to learn to master and control one's life course. Such a woman is unable to find adequate means of self-assertion. The psychological burden of inadequate self-assertion creates more anxiety and internal tension.

Many of the women with whom we share a healing partnership are women who have already had a variety of conventional cancer treatments. Often they believe that it is their doctor who decides their fate. Unless these women become active partners with her caregivers, they will be unable to lead their own healing team. Healing is a process, beginning on the spiritual and mental levels, which then structures the emotional and vital energy levels as the physical changes consistent with healing occur. Thus healing, from the inside-out, is a process which must be undertaken by each patient who is confronted with cancer. Her doctor is simply another person who can motivate and influence her decision making process. The final word in healing is that the patient has the final word.

Source: http://www.breastcancerstrategies.com/

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