CANCER MENTALITY

Positive thinking and spiritual growth are the keys to preventing and recovering from cancer, according to this self-help book.

Brodrick’s luminous exploration of the psychic dimensions of disease focuses on his own bout with colon cancer and the soul-searching it provoked. Surgery to remove the tumor went well, but he turned down chemotherapy and embarked on drastic lifestyle changes, including vegetarianism, juicing, exercise, meditation, and quitting a demanding full-time position in favor of part-time jobs. He also concluded that mental disposition was central to disease. In his case, he contends, his cancer was caused by stress and his anxiety about getting cancer. “This fear of ill health,” he writes, “is the instruction” his “cells carried out when life became stressful.” He thus had a classic “cancer personality type” that influenced his body to switch “into ‘give up’ mode and let the cancer take hold.” During his recovery, he cultivated a new mentality that eschewed stress, prioritized his well-being, learned to live in the moment, and visualized himself as healthy and cancer-free. He solidified the vision with affirmations like “Thank you God for bringing me full health.” Brodrick fleshes out his ideas by citing scientific findings from quantum mechanics (thoughts are waves of energy that influence the atoms in human cells, he argues), epigenetics (subconscious thoughts can switch genes on and off), and studies of the placebo effect, and delves into New Age lore about the spiritual teachings of Abraham. The author dispenses much useful advice on healthy living, but readers should consult their doctors before following his more unorthodox suggestions. (He stopped getting regular colonoscopies because he worried that the procedure flushed beneficial microbes from the gut.) Brodrick conveys all this in prose that mixes frank, vivid writing on practicalities—“I must have looked a funny sight trying to hold back the tide with my out-of-practice sphincter and my bent-over shuffle run!” he recalls of his first toilet stop after surgery—with warmhearted lyricism. (“Not long ago, I sought to be rich and famous….I now know that I am already rich, recognized, and loved in many ways.”) Traditional doctors will find much to argue with here, but readers looking for a holistic approach to health and cancer treatment will be inspired.

An absorbing alternative-medicine odyssey and guide, full of rich observations about sickness and recovery.