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.
Make friends with fear
“Most of all we are afraid of what is unknown, what has no form, no outline, including temporary, lies somewhere in a possible indefinite future,” says psychologist Svetlana Shmeleva . – What can be done against this? You need to find a way to get to know your fear, to “feel” it! To do this, you need to give fear a form. For example, in art therapy there is a method where fear can be drawn or sculpted. After a comprehensive acquaintance with your fear and its elaboration, it significantly decreases and passes into the category of everyday, emotionally uncolored phenomena!”
Oncology psychologist Vera Golinetskaya advises exploring your fear and trying to come to an agreement with it, even thanking it for its service. She advises facing the fear halfway and trying to mentally simulate a situation that causes fear. Moreover, in every detail. Hold yourself in this state, explore how you feel, and then exhale forcefully and say out loud: it’s over, I’m safe again! As a result of this exercise, you will feel your fear as something experienced, worked out, and therefore devoid of power.
Remember: you can negotiate and cope with fear in order to feel life in its entirety, to be “here and now”, and not in an illusory, unlikely future.
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.
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.
Consequences after chemotherapy in women
Chemical drugs, affecting the ovaries, inhibit the growth and development of follicles, damage the hereditary material of germ cells and cause hormonal disorders.
The most common side effect of chemotherapy drugs is menstrual irregularities and cessation of menstruation. Menopause can be temporary, caused by hormonal imbalances, or permanent, caused by ovarian depletion.
Women have a limited number of eggs. During her entire life, she experiences about four hundred menstrual cycles, which means that four hundred follicles go through the development cycle. Chemotherapy reduces the number of follicles, causing ovarian failure.
Here the consequences depend on age: in girls under twenty years of age, with a sufficient supply of follicles, menstruation is restored in seventy percent of cases. In women over thirty, whose ovaries are already depleted, only in their twenties.
However, pregnancy after chemotherapy is quite possible. By taking care of cryopreservation of eggs, embryos or ovarian tissue in advance, you can avoid infertility. This should be done before starting treatment, since even one course of chemotherapy deteriorates the quality of cells and changes the structure of the hereditary material. But even if the patient begins to think about possible infertility after starting treatment, it is not too late to contact a fertility specialist, although it is necessary to freeze the eggs as early as possible.
You can use the stored eggs at any time. The shelf life of the material is unlimited, and children born using preserved eggs will be no different from those conceived naturally.
It is very important to use contraception or avoid sexual contact during the course of treatment to avoid unwanted pregnancy. A woman should definitely consult her doctor about this, since chemotherapy drugs cause deformities in children.
The side effects of chemotherapy on the developing fetus are so strong that if a woman is diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy, the course of treatment is postponed until after birth.
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.
