As part of our new series on “Healing Cancer,” Dr. Miller will interview Maggie Creighton, a near legend in cancer self-care. Now, you may not recognize that name right off, but if you have heard of support groups for cancer patients, you are aware of some of her contributions.
Back in the 1970s, Dr. Miller was hard at work developing and teaching his holistic approaches to human health care and healing in the then-emerging field of mind-body medicine. At the same time, back in Dallas, Texas, the extraordinary Carl and Stephanie Simonton were using similar techniques, such as meditation, imagery, and cognitive restructuring.
Although Dr. Miller’s work and teachings explored the power of these mind tools across the entire range of human physical, mental, and emotional illnesses, Carl and Stephanie had narrowed their focus; applying these tools to the single, very important illness we call Cancer. Soon they were joined by Maggie and Jim Creighton, who could also see that by changing the way people looked at their cancer – by changing the mental images people held of what it was that was harming the health and balance of their bodies, they could change the outcome of their illness.
By teaching people tools for affecting how frightened or empowered they felt, what their expectations were, and even how they really felt about death, they saw not only the qualities of people’s lives improving, but also their illnesses.
And the impacts were huge. Sure, this is no big news story now, many years later; we have so many studies demonstrating the value of essentially all of the techniques we were using. But back then it was. Together they produced the self-healing blockbuster, Getting Well Again.
Not long afterward, Maggie and Jim then moved north to the San Francisco Bay area and contacted me. Together we opened the world’s second patient-oriented cancer support and education center. In addition we developed the first training programs, providing hands-on healing experiences for interns, who then spread our ideas throughout the country. Now it is rare indeed to find a hospital or health center that did not provide for cancer patients to meet in support and education groups. Before that, there were none!
Healing Times Radio can be heard on Dreamvisions 7 Radio Network.
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