[Psychoanalysis and cancer. A case report and a hypothesis]

The psychoanalytic treatment of a 39 year old female cancer patient demonstrates a close connection between psychic factors (cumulative separation trauma, conflict-laden relationship to the mother, oedipal conflicts etc.) and the onset and course of the cancer. After eight years of analytic therapy the cancer symptoms disappeared. The authors formulate the hypothesis that cancer may occur on a primarily somatic or psychic basis.