Among phobias, the most common is the fear of contracting an incurable disease.
And although cardiovascular pathologies are in first place among the causes of death, more often people are afraid of getting cancer. There are a huge number of prerequisites for the development of cancerophobia. Recently, the number of cancer patients has been growing rapidly. Many of them face expensive and painful treatment, funds for which, as they say, are raised by the whole world. Sometimes it seems that cancer spreads as quickly as the flu, which is why people begin to fear this disease. Today the following situation has developed: fear of cancer (cancerophobia) is a more common pathology than cancer itself.
According to statistics, women are more likely to suffer from this disorder, since they are more emotional and more often “try on” the situation for themselves. If a loved one dies of cancer, they inevitably wonder: “What if this happens to me too?”
It is normal to worry about your health and be afraid of incurable diseases, but cancerophobia, like other types of phobias, is an irrational, greatly exaggerated fear. Very often, patients understand this, but cannot cope with the problem on their own.
Reasons for development
The main reason for the spread of cancerophobia is that people know little about this disease. In the minds of the common man, cancer is:
- inevitable death;
- a disease that occurs without specific causes, it is impossible to prevent its development, and it is useless to fight it;
- painful treatment. Radiation therapy, chemotherapy and surgery are quite difficult for patients to tolerate and have many side effects. But all these methods only in very rare cases lead to healing from cancer.
Many people believe that any other disease can be cured. And when a person is diagnosed with cancer, it is already a death sentence. Often patients “give up”, considering themselves sentenced to death.
The development of cancerophobia is also facilitated by the emergence of traditional healers who claim that only they know how to get rid of cancer. They directly state: it is useless to go to ordinary hospitals, because doctors are powerless against this terrible disease. The same effect occurs after numerous advertisements of “unique” products that can save a person not only from cancer, but also from other serious pathologies.
The common practice of concealing the diagnosis plays a significant role in spreading the fear of contracting an incurable disease such as cancer. Usually doctors hide this terrible diagnosis from the patient until the last minute, in the hope of recovery. This leads to the fact that everyone knows about the huge number of people who have died from cancer, but almost no one has heard about cases of healing from this disease. Recently, much attention has been paid to medical education of the population, since cancer can only be cured if the tumor is detected at an early stage of development.
The fear of death is present in every person; it is inherent in nature and is one of the manifestations of the instinct of self-preservation. However, not all people have a fear of getting cancer. Several types of people have prerequisites for the development of cancerophobia:
- If a person feels unwell, but numerous examinations do not reveal diseases that could explain the deterioration in health. Everyone has heard about cases of death from cancer, the media reports about this disease every now and then, cancer patients are surrounded by almost every person. Gradually, such a person begins to consider himself a cancer patient.
- The risk of developing a malignant tumor is much higher in people with a family history of similar cases. But this does not mean that they will definitely get cancer, but they develop cancerophobia more often than other people.
- If a person himself has once suffered from cancer, then he may also develop this phobia. He may constantly worry that the oncologists did not complete his treatment, which means that the disease will return after a while.
There is another category of people who are prone to developing a fear of getting cancer—doctors. They know about this terrible disease more than other people; they constantly encounter cancer patients in
in their practice, they see their suffering and often transfer this picture to themselves.
Most often, middle-aged people (30-40 years old) who have not achieved great success in their career or family life suffer from cancerophobia. They are distinguished by an increased level of anxiety and frequent depression, often occurring in a latent form. Depressive disorder in this case is not accompanied by low mood; it is characterized by various somatic manifestations, which the patient takes for symptoms of an incurable disease.
All carcinophobes have one common character trait. Almost all of them are easily suggestible and need a person to lead them through life (leader dependence). Therefore, they believe various folk “healers”, gurus and other charlatans who promise their healing. People who are afraid of getting cancer are the leaders in the consumption of dietary supplements, but they also use products that are harmful to their health.
Such methods of “recovery” do not lead to getting rid of cancerophobia. The patient, on the contrary, becomes dependent on such treatment, and the health problems arising from this are treated in the same ways. This doesn't lead to anything good in the end.
Manifestations of cancerophobia
This type of nosophobia can manifest itself in different ways.
In some cases, this phobia is in a reactive state (the mildest form), in others it develops into a persistent neurosis, but sometimes oncophobia turns into psychosis, accompanied by delusions and hallucinations.
There are several degrees of manifestation of this type of phobia:
- The patient has oncophobia, but he is able to control his actions. The life of such a person does not come down to constant attempts to identify a non-existent dangerous disease, although thoughts about it still arise regularly;
- a person with this type of phobia constantly undergoes special examinations. He understands that his fears are unfounded, but he cannot do anything about them. Cancerophobia in this case is manifested by insomnia and increased anxiety. The patient constantly thinks about his death, worries about his children and other relatives;
- The patient, against the background of fear of getting cancer, develops a fanatical desire to maintain health and lead a healthy lifestyle. He is not only constantly examined, but also uses various means that, in his opinion, prevent cancer;
- a person who is confident in his illness believes that doctors simply cannot identify it. He may feel intense hatred towards others because they do not have the disease and are unable to understand the suffering he is experiencing. Sometimes such people may think that doctors have found a tumor on him, but they are simply hiding the truth from him.
Sometimes carcinophobes are so afraid of discovering cancer that they simply avoid contacting specialists and undergoing appropriate examinations. Often the fear is so great that they do not go to the doctor even if they have real symptoms of the disease.
The behavior of people with this type of phobia is rarely aimed at actually protecting their health; most often it is intrusive, exhausting and limiting activity. This behavior is aimed at reducing anxiety. First of all, a carcinophobe will avoid danger in every possible way. In his understanding, anything that can lead to the development of cancer is dangerous.
From the pages of the “yellow” press they regularly report that malignant tumors arise from mobile phones, solariums, power lines, etc. The patient will try to move away from power lines and refuse to use telephones and visits to the solarium. But, in the end, he finds himself backed into a corner, because in his mind literally everything becomes dangerous: household appliances, food, medicine and even clothing.
To avoid danger, a cancer phobe may refuse a medical examination and avoid communicating with people who actually have cancer. He is not always able to avoid situations that are in one way or another connected with cancer. Then the carcinophobes will make efforts to reduce anxiety. He will try to learn as much as possible about the disease that frightens him, find information about new research in the field of oncology, etc. Such an individual will obsessively seek support from loved ones; their assurances that he will not get cancer or die will slightly reduce the degree of anxiety, but after a while it will increase again.
Cancerophobia may seem like a harmless disease, but this is far from the case. A person not only cares about his health, he has a severe mental disorder, which can be accompanied by generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hypochondriacal disorder and other mental problems.
Cancer recurrence: how to cope with the fear that cancer will return?
In most developed countries, a diagnosis of cancer is no longer considered a fatal disease. This disease changes a person's life, but life goes on. Psychologists always work at oncology clinics to help overcome the first fear, despair and understand what happened. After all, having heard the diagnosis of cancer, each person subconsciously makes a decision for himself - to fight the disease with all possible forces, or to give up and just wait. The further mood and result depend on how the doctor presents this information, how skillfully he can explain what the person is faced with, how to deal with it, how to live further.
But what to do when a person has found strength and overcome cancer, remission has been achieved, but the feeling of fear and anxiety does not leave? Having gone through all the grueling treatments, it is quite reasonable to fear the possibility that the cancer will return and you will have to go through it all again. A relapse is possible, but it should not poison everything around.
Cancer relapse is the re-formation of a malignant neoplasm after a successfully implemented treatment strategy. This means that for some time after a course of treatment that helped eliminate the pathological neoplasm - to overcome cancer, no cancer cells were detected in the human body, but then the disease returned. And the location of the new tumor will not necessarily be the same.
The causes of relapse may be poorly performed surgical intervention, the formation of a tumor from multiple foci, and it must also be taken into account that some tumors may be insensitive to the types of treatment used. Thus, when treating a tumor that has metastasized, it is necessary to perform a biopsy of all pathological foci; another type of cancer may be detected in them, and the treatment strategy applied to the main tumor may not be effective for some metastases, but only to stop their mutation processes.
Most of all, the possibility of cancer recurrence frightens the first few years after the completed course of treatment. But you should always remember that cancer is initially a systemic failure in the functioning of the body, when the immune system was unable to cope with the pathological cells that every person has. Therefore, negative emotions and depression will not protect you from a possible relapse, but can only contribute to it.
Psychologist at the Ukrainian Tomotherapy Center Anton Pokalyukhin tells how to cope with the fear of cancer recurrence:
Fear of relapse occurs in many patients who have completed treatment, but it can range from increased anxiety before the next control test to an all-consuming horror that interferes with eating, sleeping, working and, in principle, living. There is a higher likelihood of severe fear in people who are initially anxious, as well as those deprived of emotional support from loved ones.
Naturally, it will be easier to cope with such fear with the help of a professional psychologist, but you can try to do it yourself.
First of all, you need to normalize your condition: agree that it is normal to be afraid. Fear (like anxiety) performs an important signaling function - it allows you to prepare for possible danger. After this, it is important to weigh how strong this feeling is and how it affects your life. If you only occasionally think about it and are quite capable of getting rid of such thoughts on your own, there may be no need to do anything at all.
If you notice that thoughts about a possible relapse take a lot of time and bring discomfort, then here is what you can do on your own:
- Keep busy.
Our brain is designed in such a way that it cannot do two things at the same time. If you are busy with some activity and are maximally focused on it, there will simply be no room for fear. In addition, various pleasant activities, be it embroidery, cleaning or communicating with children, give meaning to our lives and make us feel alive.
- Take care of your health.
Unfortunately, no one can be immune from relapse. However, it is within your power to ensure that the risk is minimal. Taking care of your health includes a nutritious and varied diet, enough sleep, and regular exercise. Don't neglect medical examinations and monitoring, but don't focus too much on bodily sensations.
- Share your emotions.
Even simply expressed fear often decreases on its own. If there are people who can listen to you and give you support, use it, don’t be afraid to upset them. On the contrary, your loved ones will be grateful that you share your most intimate things with them. In addition, you can also talk about fear and other emotions with a psychologist.
- Learn to control your body.
Feelings of fear and anxiety are often accompanied by a feeling of muscle tension. By learning to relax and control your body, you will be able to regulate your emotional state. You can use yoga, meditation, autogenic training, or a variety of relaxation techniques, learning them on your own or under the guidance of an instructor.
- Have plans.
It is important to live not only for today, but also to see the future. Think about what areas are the most important in your life? What more could you achieve in these areas? What qualities should you develop in yourself? And then plan specific actions to achieve these goals, which will be both short-term (days-weeks) and long-term (months-years). Remember that goals must be realistic and achievable, otherwise you risk feeling like a failure.
- Control the information field.
The amount of information that pours out on us every day is enormous. However, you should always remember that not all information is reliable and you are not obliged to believe everything you hear or read. If you decide to take care of your psychological well-being, then specialized literature on mood management or self-help for various problems may be useful to you. But reading online forums describing other people’s medical histories can, on the contrary, do harm.
If you feel that you cannot cope on your own, do not be afraid to turn to a psychologist or self-help groups. It is easier to overcome any problem with a specialist, and the fear of relapse should not prevent you from enjoying life.
If you want to consult with the specialists of our Center, this can be done free of charge, using a remote consultation.
Treatment options
The fear of contracting an incurable disease can and should be treated. It doesn't matter what kind of disease is the object of fear. Someone suffers from a fear of contracting rabies, someone is afraid of tuberculosis or cancer, but in each of these cases the same methods of cognitive and behavioral psychotherapy are used. But the exact treatment regimen is drawn up individually after assessing the patient’s condition.
A qualified psychotherapist must first make sure that his patient really does not have cancer. To do this, you need to undergo a detailed examination. If during the examination no organic pathologies were identified that could explain the origin of the symptoms troubling the patient, then the doctor’s efforts are directed to assessing his psychological state.
During the conversation, the psychotherapist must find out exactly when the patient had thoughts about the appearance of cancer, whether this was preceded by traumatic situations, what measures he took for healing, etc. Diagnosis of cancerophobia must be differentiated; this is necessary to exclude schizophrenia, psychopathy and neurotic disorders.
The features of the therapy used largely depend on the severity of cancerophobia and the presence of concomitant mental pathologies:
- Drug treatment of cancerophobia may involve the use of tranquilizers, antidepressants, anxiolytics, etc. Modern psychological care centers often practice monotherapy, during which the patient uses only one drug throughout the entire course of treatment.
- If cancerophobia is a manifestation of an anxiety disorder, as well as with panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive neurosis and other mental disorders, the efforts of doctors will be aimed at curing the underlying pathology.
- If a patient with cancerophobia experiences somatic pain, he may be advised to take antispasmodics and analgesics. If a somatic pathology is identified, the patient will be referred for consultation to a specialized specialist (therapist, neurologist, surgeon, cardiologist, etc.).
All of the above methods are often used in the treatment of oncophobia and other irrational fears, but still the main method of various phobias is psychotherapy. Correction of the mental state requires identifying the underlying causes of the development of such fear. Quite often, behind the fear of cancer lies a panicky horror of premature death. But why the patient is really so afraid of dying is often difficult to discover, since the reasons for the fear are hidden very deep in the subconscious.
It is normal to be afraid of death, and this is inherent in all life on the planet, but the fear of a carcinophobe has nothing to do with this. The fear of developing malignant tumors may be based on childhood psychological trauma, persistent irrational beliefs, fears that a person experienced in childhood, but then outgrew them, but they passed into the unconscious. Using the techniques of classical psychoanalysis and Jung's depth psychotherapy, problems of this level can be solved. Individual patient consultations can be supplemented with family therapy sessions, this is necessary to resolve problems in relationships between family members.
A technique called therapeutic storytelling may also be used. It is most effective when working with children. After a conversation with the patient, the doctor composes a story whose characters are inspired by the patient’s fears. A tale about the fear of getting cancer will help you understand that there are no hopeless situations.
How to solve the problem yourself
Today, there are many techniques that can relieve the fear of cancer. But most of them require special knowledge and skills that psychotherapists acquire during study and practice. However, there are ways you can overcome your phobia yourself.
The most effective technique for dealing with fears is a method based on a simple mechanism. When you are in a stressful situation, whether positive or negative, the brain forms a close connection between your emotions and what you see, hear and feel at the moment. That is why the smell of tangerines takes us back to childhood, when we were looking forward to New Year's gifts from Santa Claus, and the smell of incense makes us feel elated, as if we were visiting a temple. A pleasant emotional state can be caused by the sounds of your favorite music, to which you danced with your loved one, etc.
This mechanism can be used to combat irrational fear. Try to attach positive emotions to a specific action, such as pinching your earlobe or rubbing your hands. If you feel that a phobia attack is about to begin, simply touch your ear or elbow. Pleasant pictures will appear in the brain, and the intensity of fear will be reduced. Gradually, the manifestations of the phobia will become less vivid, and after a while they will disappear altogether.
Today, a very common theory is that cancer occurs against the background of accumulated grievances and negative emotions. Therefore, for self-healing it is very important to find inner peace. If you love yourself, forgive old grievances, and enjoy life at the moment, then the phobias will recede.
To answer this question, first of all, you need to understand the causes of fear itself, which in its clinical manifestations is called cancerophobia and even requires professional treatment. We talked about the causes of fear of cancer, consequences and ways to overcome it with the leading psychologist of the Clear Morning Service, Tatyana Subycheva.
Why are we afraid of cancer?
Cancer (any kind, not just children’s) is still a taboo topic. They prefer not to discuss this disease. It is associated with negative emotions and a fatal outcome - the inevitability of painful death. Perhaps this unspoken secrecy partly stems from those times when the disease was little studied, and the level of diagnostics did not allow, in most cases, to detect cancer in the early stages. Back then, most cancer patients were doomed; there was a tradition in society of hiding the truth about the diagnosis from them and those around them.
The taboo nature of the topic and the reluctance of people to plunge into negativity indirectly contribute to the fact that there is not enough open, professionally competent information about malignant diseases. People mainly rely not on open sources or the competent opinion of specialists, but on personal experience - the experience of the illness of loved ones or acquaintances. Progressive developments in global oncology in recent years, breakthrough scientific research, discoveries of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic techniques related to both treatment and symptom relief, positive trends in cancer statistics in general - all this remains “behind the scenes” of public knowledge.
This “information deafness” provoked most of the myths about cancer that still exist, including the myth that cancer is incurable.
Thanks to the efforts of modern medicine around the world, today cancer is not a death sentence, although its treatment is associated with many difficulties, and the causes have not yet been clearly identified. This or that form of cancer, detected in the early stages, is considered curable to one degree or another (this is especially true for pediatric oncology and pediatric oncohematology). In addition, today we can say that modern therapy helps to significantly reduce the level of suffering of cancer patients. But, unfortunately, most people, relying on speculation and without access to competent information, continue to live in an outdated “information bunker”, inside their fears.
Why are fears dangerous?
In general, worrying about your child’s health is a normal state. But hypertrophied, irrational fear destroys. Cancerophobia is one of the forms of such destruction.
Fear suppresses the will; all thoughts are constantly directed towards it. This is long-term, ongoing stress that negatively affects the body - mental and physical state. A person suffers from loss of strength and lack of energy. Motivation for any action is lost. There is a great danger of depression.
Needless to say, fear for the child’s health can further aggravate the problem?
A mother, suffering from excessive suspiciousness, as a rule, begins to look for the slightest manifestations of illness in the child, arguing with doctors if they do not confirm her guesses. And if the child is impressionable, if he has a very close connection with his parents, and they also cannot contain their anxious state, such fear can be passed on to the child. This fear begins to manifest itself as excessive restrictions on freedom, the possibility of accumulating personal practical and social experience (by the way, many even today consider cancer to be a contagious disease and limit children’s communication). In adulthood, for some children, hypertrophied anxiety of parents can result in such negative phenomena as a lack of will and motivation to do anything (the so-called “learned helplessness”).
Another form of fear of cancer is fear of medical examinations. Parents avoid showing their child to doctors, afraid of hearing “this.” And then there is a risk of missing the opportunity to start treatment in the early stages if the diagnosis is confirmed. Fear of going to the doctor can play a negative role, since time is a significant factor in the treatment of cancer.
How to deal with fear?
Follow the rules:
• Fear, first of all, must be legitimized. Its existence must not only be recognized, but also normalized.
• It is important to understand the causes of fear – what exactly is scary. Psychologists say: if you turn your face to fear, it decreases in size. And if you feel that you cannot deal with your fears on your own, you can turn to a specialist - a psychologist, who will help you “unearth the essence” of fear and cope with it using special techniques - transfer destructive fear into a constructive direction.
• Find information: consult a doctor or specialist. When going on an independent search for information in open sources, it is important to understand that these sources must be official and expert (professional literature or websites - doctors, medical institutions, professional communities, etc.; now, for example, there are professional online services where you can ask a specialist to clarify the diagnosis and get an outside opinion).
It is competent information received from a doctor or other specialist as a response to the cause of fear that can neutralize anxiety and stress, which is dangerous for both adults and children.
Prepared by Tatyana Subycheva for the Charitable Foundation for helping seriously ill children LIVE
