Healing through the mind: extending our theories, research, and clinical practice

This paper was prompted by experience with 2 kinds of experimental designs used to investigate the impact of psychological therapies on longevity in patients with metastatic cancers. The more conventional design, a randomized controlled trial, gave a null result, and the associated psychometric tests yielded essentially no useful information on qualities of patients that might favor healing. By contrast, the second study, using a mixed qualitative/quantitative analysis of data, and a basically correlative design, produced a wealth of information on the modes of psychological adaptation of different patients to their cancer, and on the relationship of many of these qualities to longer survival. This would seem to constitute an argument for more studies of this kind in research on healing. Drawing on this experience, I discuss some general principles for research, clinical practice, and theory building in this area, among them: the value of detailed, qualitative examination of subjects case by case; ways of applying quantitative measurements to rather ill-defined psychological variables; the need for intensive psychoeducational therapy designed to foster personal growth and change; importance of the spiritual component in therapy; the validity of psychological prognoses for medical conditions; the value of higher order constructs (for example, "involvement in self-help"); and conceptualization of healing as a progressive, developmental process, in which stages may be recognized. Some definitions and distinctions between different kinds of healing are also offered, in particular, distinguishing between spontaneous, externally-assisted, and internally-assisted healing, the last being what is meant by "healing through the mind."