By Daniel J. Benor, MD

It may seem a radical statement to claim that there is no such thing as cancer. But this is absolutely true.

‘Cancer’ is a creation of conventional medicine. Cancer is a convenient distillation of all the symptoms reported by and observed in people who have abnormal growths in their bodies – growths that continue to enlarge and may spread throughout the body. No one person has all of the possible manifestations of ‘cancer.’

This is equally true of all other medical diagnoses, such as ‘hypertension,’ ‘premenstrual syndrome (PMS),’ ‘heart disease,’ and a long list of other words applied to clusters of symptoms. It is equally true of the individual symptoms and broader labels identified and used by conventional medicine, such as ‘pain,’ ‘depression,’ ‘dementia,’ and so on. Each person has a unique combination of signs and symptoms that are typical of the named disease. The example of cancer will suffice, however, to demonstrate what I am identifying as a basic error in addressing the human conditions of health and illnesses.

The good news is that modern medicine has made enormous advances by gathering clusters of symptoms into medical diagnoses. This enables physicians to identify problems brought to them by people who have diverse lists of aches, pains and other objective and subjective problems, sorting these into named, identified illness issues. This then enables doctors to prescribe appropriate treatments.

The bad news is that modern medicine addresses the symptoms and illnesses the person has, rather than the person who has the symptoms and illnesses. This dehumanization of medical practice contributes to many distortions, miscommunications and embarrassments of interventions that do not address the true issues presented by most people who come for medical care.

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
                     –  Sir William Osler (1849-1919)

Each person brings a unique set of symptoms that are framed by their unique genetic endowments, life experiences, diet, lifestyles, exposures to various infective agents and toxins (in food, water and environmental exposures), allergic reactions, metabolic abnormalities, physical traumas, emotional stressors and traumas, family relationships, degenerative and neoplastic (abnormal growths of cells) problems. Many of these factors are overlooked by physicians, who are narrowly focused on physical symptoms that they have been trained to cluster into recognizable syndromes labeled as diseases. The person who brings them the symptoms is largely ignored.

People’s most common complaint about medical care is that “The doctor doesn’t take time to listen to me.” This is the way that people experience the over-focus of doctors on their bodies.

These problems have promoted a thriving business in complementary and alternative care. These include acupuncture, homeopathy, therapeutic massage, Ayurvedic medicine, energy medicine practitioners, healers of all varieties, and other such practitioners. These therapists typically spend a much longer time listening to the people who come to them for consultation, recommendations for herbal remedies and supplements, healing diets and lifestyle changes. Many practitioners address the person who has the problem rather than just ministering to the body that is presented by the person. (See discussions of these approaches and more in How Can I Heal What Hurts? and Consciousness, Bioenergy and Healing .) Sadly, a portion of these practitioners follow the medical model of addressing symptoms and disease clusters of symptoms (which sometimes differ significantly from medical syndromes) rather than dealing with the whole person.

My own experience of helping people as unique individuals to address their symptoms and illnesses is that when there is a physical problem it is a reflection and a message to people about their lives. When people are invited to look inward and ask their body what it is saying (through their symptoms) that it wants them to know about their life, most will get clear answers.

The clearest examples I have for this is through pains because pains respond immediately to people’s dialogue with them. When people take notice of what the body is asking of them, and when they promise faithfully to respond to the body’s requests, the pains are reduced immediately. Sometimes they are eliminated in this way altogether. The same is true of other symptoms and illnesses, though the feedback with these is usually slower.

Others have made similar observations. David Spiegel is a physician in California who founded support groups for people diagnosed with inoperable cancer. People in the support groups sometimes reached awareness that the cancers were an acceptable form of suicide – in situations where they felt trapped in employment or in relationships that they could not tolerate but also could not leave. Some of those who gained the courage to leave their intolerable situations found that their cancers went into remission. On the average, those in the support groups lived much longer than expected.

Why some people develop cancers and others develop arthritis, bowel disorders, skin diseases or other particular problems is as yet unclear. Just by addressing people as unique individuals, however, we can come to understandings of their individual needs and can help them deal with the unique stresses and issues in their lives so that their bodies do not need to ‘shout’ at them through various diseases and through pains and other symptoms.

My personal favorite approach in helping people to do this is through TWR , which invites self-healing on every level of their being : body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit.

You may reproduce all or parts of this article in your journal, magazine, ezine, blog or other web or paper publication on condition that you credit the source as follows: Copyright © 2008 Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM   All rights reserved. Original publication at WholisticHealingResearch.com where you will find many more related articles on this and similar subjects of wholistic healing.