An eclectic process involving complementary therapies could be more effective than solely rely on radiotherapy or chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer. Apart from holistic approaches such as right diet and right amount of physical exercise, Clinical Hypnotherapy could be considered as an effective complementary treatment for patient with cancer to help them in the area of psychological wellbeing thus improve their quality of life.
Clinical
Hypnotherapy could be helpful to help the cancer patient in:
Acceptance
Very often,
a person diagnosed with cancer are engaged in the phase of denial as a defense
mechanism. This behavior ignore the reality to avoid anxiety or troubling
feelings. They may reject support, refuse treatment, avoid talking about their
condition or unwilling to change their lifestyle. Denial may be useful in short
term to allow a person to adapt to a new situation and move on. However,
prolonged denial may cause the illness to worsen because of not taking
appropriate actions. Clinical Hypnotherapy could help a person to obtain a
neutral and calm stage of mind to observe their issue thus able to choose the
best possible solution effectively. When a person accepts their situation, changes
will take place and the energy could effectively focus on healing.
Self-Forgiveness
Forgiving
yourself means letting go of the self-blaming thoughts and emotions associated
with the unfortunate event. With self forgiveness, a person is able to let go
of the resentment or anger and find peace from within. It may be easier to
forgive others but difficult to forgive themselves because that means a person
has to accept their imperfection as well. There are many Clinical Hypnotherapy
tools able to promote self-love thus leading to self-forgiveness.
Anxiety
Anxiety is
a natural human response to uncertainty on future event or threat. Anxiousness
may lead to avoidance or being unable to do certain tasks or activities which
may lead to decrease in quality of life. Cancer patient often has anxiety while
undergoing cancer screening test, waiting for test results, undergoing cancer
treatment, feeling of body discomfort, worry about recurrence of cancer or fear
of death. Anxiety may create symptoms of nausea, vomiting, blurred vision,
insomnia and increased feelings of pain. Clinical Hypnotherapy is one of the
most effective ways to help a person manage anxiety.
Depressed
Mood
Depressed
mood naturally occurs when a person lost something that is important in their
life. Symptoms of depressed mood are feelings
of sadness, powerless, difficult to sleep or loss of interest in almost all the
activities. They often interpret things negatively and has a pessimistic
outlook on their future. Clinical Hypnotherapy could lead a person see their situation
from a different perspective and gain insight to expand their resilience toward
mood swing.
Minimize
Side Effect Of Treatment
Clinical
Hypnotherapy may be effective to eliminate or reduce side effects of chemotherapy
or radiation treatments such as nausea, pain, tiredness, hair loss and loss of
appetite. Direct suggestion technique could be used to communicate with the
body and mind on the expected positive outcome from the treatments thus
influence the result at the subconscious level. Clinical Hypnotherapy can help
the patient to be more relaxed and confident thus improving the immune system’s
ability to fight against cancer.
Pain Management
Pain is very
common in cancer patients. This symptom can be caused by tumors or cancer
treatment related factors such as surgery, intravenous chemotherapy, targeted
therapy, radiation therapy or diagnostic procedures. Severe pain will affect quality of life and
ability to function even after treatment ends. In fact, cancer pain could
classified into physical pain and mental suffering. Clinical hypnotherapy could
help with pain management by effectively reduce mental suffering and reframe
the meaning of physical pain.
Self
Confidence
Cancer
patient may lose self-confidence upon being diagnosed with cancer. Furthermore,
cancer treatment may jeopardize their physical looks such as scars from the
surgery, hair loss, unusual body weight and pale complexion. This may negatively
impact on their self-esteem and confidence. Clinical Hypnotherapy could help
the patient shift the focus to helpful emotions such as sense of appreciation, gratitude,
and love to their body to promote healing. Certain patients may start to
explore their life purpose when facing severe challenges in their life and move
toward spiritual growth.
Create
Helpful Behaviour
Our mind
divided into 2 parts, that is conscious and subconcious mind. Conscious mind process
logical information and subconcious mind govern our perception, emotion, response,
habit, behaviour and actions based on our past experience or belief system. As the
habit and behaviour are govern by the subconscious mind, it is very difficult
to change a person’s habit or behavior just by advising them with the logical rational.
Clinical hypnosis could communicate with the subconscious mind effectively to gain new insight and desire thus move on with more helpful behaviours
for healing.
Palliative
Care
Some patients with advanced cancer may choose palliative care to relieve symptoms and suffering caused by cancer instead of cure until the end of their life journey. It is very important to relief a patient under palliative care in three aspects which is physical suffering, emotion disturbing and spiritual uncertainty. Clinical hypnotherapy could help in those three aspects by managing pain, attain calm stage of mind and strengthen their spiritual belief.
Reference :
Complementary Therapy for Cancer In Malaysia
Website : www.clinicalhypnosisi.com.my