Cancer treatment and help with cancer in N.I. - Northern Ireland

Stephen Chan hypnotherapist can help you using hypnosis and hypnotherapy in Portadown and Belfast, also within easy reach of Newry, Lisburn, Antrim, Lurgan, Armagh and Dundalk.

A Psychological approach to cancer treatment

Cancer is a multifaceted degenerative disease and is usually caused by a breakdown of our physical, mental and emotional levels to varying degrees. From the evidence available, the main causes are thought to be metabolic (dietary) disorders/deficiencies, lifestyle choices, stress (of any kind) and emotional conflict; this last factor often involves a significant trauma or loss (which is usually unresolved) within two years of the initial diagnosis or indeed can involve the 'bottling up' of subconscious anxiety for many years.
There is also evidence to suggest that an inability to express emotion effectively may be a contributing factor. Hans Selye, a well-respected scientist who developed a type of cancer with an extremely low 'cure' rate and who overcame his disease, stated that ".....the great majority of physical illnesses have in part some psychosomatic origin".

The Road to Health – Cancer Help Programme

This programme is based upon the work of Dr. O Carl Simonton, internationally acclaimed oncologist and author of ‘Getting well again’ the best selling classic about his lifesaving self-awareness techniques.

Dr Simonton developed a model of emotional support for the treatment of cancer patients…this approach introduces the concept that one's state of mind can influence one’s ability to survive cancer.

This is a whole person approach to cancer treatment, which tackles the individual’s physical symptoms, emotional problems, and beliefs - both about their ability to recover, and their capacity to resolve their emotional problems.

Each step of the process is designed to help to restore the physical, mental and emotional balance of the individual, all of which are essential to their recovery.
The programme can be applied to any disease, and can be adopted as regular practice to help ward off illness in the first place – prevention is the best medicine. Here is a brief overview of the programme.

Part 1 - Your Health -Taking an Active Role

This is the first step, where you take back the control! By understand and accepting how each and every one of us has a very active role when to comes to the state of our health. We examine how you may have unwittingly participated in the present situation that you now find yourself in.

Exercises are used to help to identify the major stresses that were happening in your life in the six to eighteen months prior to the diagnosis. For some this could be down to one major stressful experience, or a number of major stresses happening in quick succession. For others it may be the way they have put everyone else’s needs before their own leaving, little if no strength for themselves. For others it can be the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness as they are unable to face day to day stresses.

Once you become aware of the stresses or stressors in your life, you can discover more effective ways of coping with them, this will result in you not only feeling more physically and mentally able to fight against the disease, but also enable you to live a far more richer life.

Part 2 = What has Being ill Brought Me?

We live in a society that is achievement and success based, which encourages hard work, and self esteem is based on how efficient you are. We are discouraged to take care of ourselves in fact we are encouraged to leave matters of our health in the hands of the ‘experts’. It’s a consumer society where we are discouraged to take better care of our emotional selves and taught that there is a pill or product that will help us to cope with emotions such as sadness, grief, anger, guilt and hostility.

But, when a person is diagnosed with a severe disease, it becomes ok to become emotional, it becomes ok to ask for the love, for the help, for the support or just too simply express their unhappiness, for others it could just be a way to get away from that job that has been so stressful. The disease has actually given them the permission to do all of this and more.

In this section you are helped to identify some of the benefits that being ill has brought that on a subconscious level may in some way sabotaging your recovery.
This will help you to discover positive and less destructive ways in which they can have these emotional benefits met in order to get better.

Part 3 = How to relax and visualise yourself back to health.

Here you are taught the massive benefits that will be obtained from the use of relaxation and mental imagery, these are fantastic tools with which we can create and strengthen your belief in your ability to recover from illness. The first part includes a fantastic relaxation technique which will help you to smash the cycle of fear and tension that often grips the person when cancer is diagnosed. It has been proven that relaxation can boost the immune system by up to 20%.

Not only will you be de-stressed, but you will discover how being able to relax can change your perceptions of things which will allow you to cope far more effectively with your present situation.

This section allows you to prepare for the mental imagery exercises which are to follow. These exercises create positive changes to your expectations, this is a journey of self discovery as you learn how you can visualise your recovery to health.

Part 4 = The significance of positive mental imagery.

Mental imagery is an invaluable key to uncovering any negative beliefs that could impede your recovery, remember every thought creates and emotion and every emotion creates a bodily effect!

Here we analysis the symbols that will be drawn by you, and look at how we can create more effective and powerful symbols in order to deal with the disease.

Part 5 = Letting go of resentment.

Holding on to these negative emotions has the effect of keeping us in a negative emotional loop of stress and tension. Here you are freed from the shackles of unexpressed negative emotions and feelings, especially anger and resentment.

This ‘emotional baggage’ doesn’t only have a devastating effect upon our body, but also obstructs your recovery.

Here you will learn specific techniques that will allow you to free yourself from the past, to build yourself a bridge, and to get over it, allowing you to let go of over resentment, rather than just trying to moralise to you about the virtues of forgiveness.

Part 6 = Creating a life that’s worth living for.

When the diagnoses is cancer, the urge to give up, to withdrawn, to stop thinking of living, but to think of dying are the feelings that are most commonly felt.
In this section we confront these destructive expectations, and the obvious knock on effect this negative mind set will have upon ones quality of life.

You will learn the importance of setting worthwhile goals, goals that will help maintain a high quality of life and reinforce that will to live.

As you create a life that will not only will be worth living for, but also worth hanging around for. By setting up short and long term goals, you are creating and reaffirming the belief and intention that you have the ability to live to achieve these goals. You will also learn specific techniques that will enable you to strengthen your expectations in order to meet your specific goals – your reasons for living, your life’s meaning!

Part 7 = Messages of help from within.

Again using mental imagery you can create and communicate with your ‘inner guide / voice’. Most commonly the guides tend to be in the form of a wise old man or woman, or a friendly animal, or just that inner ‘gut’ feeling all of which represent the inner nurturing side of your personality. These messages from within can provide us with valuable information from your own inner adviser.

Part 8 = Pain Management.

Here you will gain a better understanding of pain, and will be provided with very powerful techniques to effectively manage pain. We also learn to look upon pain as a messenger of the fears and anxieties that may be going on in our lives, which means an inevitable reduction in the pain levels once these issues have been addressed.

Part 9 =Exercise the natural stress buster

Because physical activity is a natural way in which our bodies can release stress and tension, you will be encouraged to begin some sort exercise regime. Studies have found that many of the most dramatic recoveries from cancer were with people who became physically active upon their diagnosis. As well as the physical benefits we learn how exercise can also benefit us mentally.

Part 10 = Handling the worry of relapse and death

Because we live in a society where death is still a taboo subject that is rarely discussed, examined or understood is helps to create an especially fearful subject.

Feelings that are consistently ‘bottled up’ will continue to grow and develop an even more fearful and powerful grip upon us, so much so that the fear of death and relapse can completely overwhelm a person. This often creates an environment of isolation as the individual feels unable to discuss these very real concerns openly with those who are nearest and dearest and matter the most to them.

In this section we use exercises that will enable us to explore your feelings on this subject, so your beliefs about death and relapse are allowed to be aired, thus removing the ‘possibility’ of death from the realms of the taboo.

Our lives are influenced by our unconscious beliefs in fact our beliefs create so much of our reality, so by examining your beliefs and deciding which ones actually serve you enables you to improve your quality of life.

Part 11 = The family support team.

Here we take a look at how the rest of the family can be helped, allowing them to understand their feelings whilst having to face this potentially life threatening disease.

Learning how by establishing an open, honest and loving supportive environment where everyone’s feelings are respected and taken into consideration.

Creating this environment is essential for improving the quality of life of everyone within the family unit - which is the most supportive atmosphere for recovery.

Relaxation and Suggestion CD’s.

There are also a series of relaxation / suggestion CD’s available to help with the different stages, and also to help with the different difficulties that one with cancer may experience, such as: Cancer Pain Management, Cancer Test Calmness, and No Nausea, At Ease with Cannulas and Needles and Staying Positive with Cancer.

One of the benefits of using these CD’s, in fact the whole idea behind the ‘Road to Health’ is that you will take back a sense of control, which in turn will reduce your stress levels resulting, which immensely reduces the toll on an already weakened immune system.

Here, my colleague and cancer survivor Beaula Page shares her special insight with us, “to be diagnosed with cancer ---- to feel like you have 'lost control' of your body ---- to seek out alternative and complementary treatments to the standard medical treatments ---- to undergo chemotherapy ---- to fight back to health, on all levels ---- to find the best ways of maintaining that health. Also, from my own experience, I am only too aware of the role that inner anxiety and the emotional/psychological factors listed above played in the formation of my own disease.”

Please note: The above information is in no way designed to take the place of a medical diagnosis or medical advice. If you are at all concerned about your health you must contact your doctor first.

The fees for these sessions are different to my other fees and depend on the help you require, so they will be discussed during the initial consultation. If you subsequently undergo a course of 'Pure' Hypnoanalysis the fees will be as normal for this therapy.

For inner change to take place and to obtain lasting relief from your inner anxieties, fears or phobias and/or to release any 'bottled up' or unresolved emotions, a course of 'Pure' Hypnoanalysis' would be required but this cannot normally be undertaken until you have finished any medical treatment(s) and have regained your strength.
This can be discussed further during the free initial consultation.

Please contact me Stephen Chan at Ulster Hypnotherapy
to arrange a free consultation
Free phone 0800 970 1189.

I offer a free confidential consultation at my Portadown, Newry and Belfast Hypnotherapy clinics, which are within easy reach of Lisburn, Armagh, Antrim, Lurgan and Dundalk.
There will be no need to speak to anyone other than myself, and I promise that your problems will be discussed with the greatest of sensitivity and strictest confidence. Please note that because of the volume of clientele there is a strong possibility you will be connected to my personal answer phone. If this is the case, just leave your name and number, and when I return the call I will not give my name, and will ask for, and talk only to you.

YOUR CONFIDENTIALITY IS GUARANTEED.