• After you are diagnosed with cancer, you face many difficult decisions and dilemmas. Contact with your inner guide or inner wisdom can be an additional support to help you make the right decisions.

The oncologist Simonton

Dr. Carl O. Simonton is the founder of Simonton Therapy, a self-help program for people with cancer. It combines a host of empowering factors into a thorough overall program for people with cancer.

Simonton is an Orthodox-trained radiologist/oncologist and a pioneer of cancer treatment techniques involving not only the body but also the mind. His ideas were first described in the bestseller “Getting well again” (translation: “On the road to recovery“). He is medical director of the Simonton Cancer Help Center in Pacific Palisades, California.

Book tips

Dr. O. Carl Simonton, “On the Road to Recovery” (1978), ISBN 9026617399. Thoroughly proposed combined approach of mainstream and complementary treatment methods. Well reasoned and easy to read.

Dr. O. Carl Simonton, “The power that lies within you” (1992), ISBN 9055744476. Sequel to “On the Road to Recovery. Summary of the Simonton Cancer Help Center program. Deepening the learning based on Reid Henson’s miraculous healing.

Below is a piece of text about the inner guide from “On the Road to Recovery” by O. Carl Simonton.

If you wish, you can also click directly through to The Inner Guide Exercise already.

Consulting a guide or inner wisdom

‘Our unconscious mind has very valuable potential that we could use for our own growth and healing.’

In the history of psychology, we repeatedly encounter scientists who hypothesized the existence of a “core” in the human psyche that determines, regulates and influences a person’s life course. People have given this center or core different names. Freud was the first to call this core the unconscious – the seat of the instincts and drives that influence our behavior but lie largely outside our consciousness. Jung attributed another characteristic to the being of the unconscious; he said that a person is not only driven by the unconscious but is also guided by it toward personal development and well-being. According to Jung, the center of a person’s psyche (which he himself called it) also has a compensatory function. When a person consciously feels anxious, he will try to give himself the feelings of strength and courage he needs to face the anxious situation. According to Jung, messages from the unconscious, or self, are always conducive to a person’s well-being. The unconscious communicates with the conscious self through feelings, dreams and intuitions. Unfortunately, our culture seems to undervalue these messages. We are taught to value events and objects – behavior, our bodies, material objects, the logical products of our minds – and not our inner environment. Therefore, we tend to ignore the feelings, dreams and intuitions of our inner self. While these seek to provide us with opportunities to meet the demands of the outside world.

Several researchers have launched the proposition that cancer patients would be out of touch with the resources and possibilities of their unconscious processes. From our experience, many recovered patients have begun to see their illness in part as a message to be valued and have therefore begun to pay more attention to their unconscious selves than to the demands made on them by others. In addition, many patients say that in their efforts to get well again, they benefited greatly from certain insights, feelings, dreams or images that gave them valuable guidance.

The “inner guide” is an exercise we have patients do to get in touch with their healing inner resources. A visualization exercise about your inner guide gives you access to the your unconscious. This guide can be seen as a symbolic representation of those aspects of personality that usually elude consciousness. When you get in touch with your inner guide, through a visualization exercise we will describe below, you make connections to important spiritual resources from which you are usually cut off.

Jungian psycho-analysis was the first to work with the inner guide in the therapeutic process. Jung wrote that while meditating or daydreaming, spontaneous images sometimes formed that had an autonomous self-contained meaning In Jungian psychotherapy there is a strong emphasis on contact with these positive forces in the unconscious.

One method by which one can establish contact with the inner guide is the “guided daydream,” a particular type of visualization exercise. Also in psychosynthesis, a form of psychotherapy developed by Dr. Robert Assaglioli, establishing contact with the inner guide, as part of a self-discovery and self-discovery program, is highly encouraged.

For many people, the inner guide appears in the form of a venerable authority figure – a wise old man or woman, a doctor, a religious figure – with whom one can have inner conversations, whom one can ask questions and who is able to give them information that one cannot get through conscious thought. Moreover, patients often respond better to insights gained in conversations with their inner guide than to observations from a group facilitator or therapist. Since the inner guide is an aspect of their own personality, when patients rely on this guide, they begin to feel more responsible for their own mental and physical health. And that is a healthy development.

Click here for The Inner Guide Exercise (continued).

The inner guide: practical examples

John

One of our patients, an 18-year-old boy with acute leukemia, showed us the healing wisdom of the inner guide. John was a reclusive, intellectual boy who believed that problems he could not solve with his mind were unsolvable. However, he once dreamed of an “unorthodox doctor” who made it clear to him that he was a physician who would help him get rid of his illness. When he had told us about this experience, we said that the healer from his dream could be an “inner healer” who in fact symbolizes his own healing power. We encouraged him to visit this inner doctor in his imagination and consult him about his problems.

John had little trouble making contact with the “unorthodox physician” and engaged in an inner dialogue that addressed three major issues: his weight loss in the hospital, the sagging of his muscles as a result of little exercise in the hospital and his fears about girls and sexuality. From the conversations came the idea of asking if he could have a special protein drink of fifteen hundred calories every day. Thanks to this diet, his weight regained. He recognized that he would not get that exercise he needed if he did not take better care of himself. Because his leukemia was at an advanced stage and not responding to treatment, hospital staff assumed he would die and made no further attempt to encourage him to exercise. After requesting advice from his inner physician, he contacted the physical therapist and urged her to set up a program for him.

Regarding his fear of girls and sexuality, his inner physician advised him not to worry so much about girls at this time. He would do better to become more active in dealing with people in general. John started driving around the department more and engaging in conversations with others. He marveled at how friendly everyone was to him; his fear of people gradually diminished.

David

This second example highlights that using the inner guide is an effective way to access the unconscious. David, who is now over 60, came to us after learning that he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that affects the bone marrow. In the therapy group, he told us that since childhood he had a dream that kept returning. He dreamed that he woke up in the middle of the night and was totally paralyzed, as if he had been bewitched. In his dream, he fought constantly, convinced he could break the spell if he managed to move a single muscle. But he absolutely did not succeed This nightmare made him so anxious that he had asked his wife to fold the bed sheets more generously. He believed the dream returned more often when the sheets were too tight around his feet. Nevertheless, he continued to dream this.

We asked David to memorize and write down his dreams, hoping that his dream life would yield something useful. We suggested that a nightmare that possessed such eloquence as his probably contains important communications from the unconscious and could provide valuable psychological information. Some time after David had begun jotting down his dreams, he had several nightmares in succession, followed by a beautiful dream about two children playing delightfully in a large meadow. As it began to dusk, the children said goodbye and one child said to another: “Since you want to play with me I don’t have to tie you up anymore.

As David reflected on his dream, his intuition informed him that one child represented his “conscious self” and the other child – who spoke of “no more tying up” – represented his unconscious. David was a successful manager who took on many responsibilities for his company, the well-being of his employees and the development of his hometown. He had neglected his own feelings and emotional needs in the process. He felt that his unconscious had been trying to get his attention for years with this recurring dream.

He was convinced that the child from his dream had told him how to prevent his nightmare. He continued to write down his dreams, read books on the meaning of dream symbols and asked the group to help him interpret his dreams. In addition, David made the decision to incorporate the image of his unconscious into his daily visualization exercises He asked the child what it had to say and promised he would listen as long as the child did not tie him down again. This inner guide constantly gives David good advice, the nightmare he hasn’t had for two and a half years.

He has since found several more inner guides that seem to represent unconscious aspects of his personality. One of them is a crying eight-year-old boy who spontaneously appeared in his visualizations. David recalled experiencing a traumatic event at age eight that led him to the decision that he would arrange his life so that other people could not hurt him emotionally. The boy’s image reflected all the pain and sorrow that made him decide at the time to avoid intimate relationships. David discovered fairly soon that the crying child appeared in his visualization exercises only when he was feeling dejected and had bottled up his feelings. He began to see the child’s appearance as a signal indicating that he was closing himself off to his feelings again.

Gwen

Gwen was a difficult patient for us. Although she responded well physically to our program, she often resisted our attempts to bring up psychological problems. She showed resistance to self-examination and to thinking about other ways of relating to people. Hoping that we could still find a way to get her to look at herself, we suggested the inner-guide exercise.

Somewhat shyly, she told us that a figure named Dr. Fritz had appeared in her visualization exercises two months earlier. However, she had not dared to tell us before. We asked her what Dr. Fritz was doing in her visualization, and she told us that he was helping her to get better again She asked him a number of questions, and his answers revealed a deep understanding of the emotional problems Gwen had avoided in talking to us.

She listened to what Dr. Fritz had to say. For example: she had a phone conversation with her daughter about an upcoming visit. After that conversation, Gwen felt quite angry. She said nothing about that to her daughter, but that day she developed pain at the site of her cancer. She consulted Dr. Fritz about the pain, and he told her that the pain stemmed from not saying “no” to her daughter right away. He said she felt angry about her daughter’s demands and if she wanted to get rid of the pain she would have to call her daughter and tell her she would not be coming for the weekend. Gwen called her daughter and cancelled the visit; the pain subsided. Over a six-month period, several more of these events occurred, thirty or forty or so. Her health condition improved systematically.

Janet

Some patients derive valuable insights and data from inner dialogues they have with the symbols from their visualization exercise. Janet had breast cancer with metastases to her abdominal cavity. She began visualization exercises when she came to therapy with us. Despite her poor prognosis, she responded remarkably well to treatment. She was able to return to work and continue her normal activities for two and a half years. Then she faced a number of emotional stresses. After a period of several months during which she experienced unusual stress, her illness flared up again. During a visualization exercise, which she did shortly thereafter, she evoked the image of her white blood cells and asked them if they were willing to work overtime to regain control of the tumor. They replied that they would not do it alone, without her, that she herself would have to cooperate. They pointed out that it was important for her, if she wanted to recover, to pay attention to the emotional causes of the return of her illness. And that in addition to the visualization exercises, which she did three times a day, she should do something about these causes. The white corpuscles assured her that they would make extra efforts to push back the cancer and multiply so that new white corpuscles would constantly be supplied to take on her disease. This dialogue led to her coming back to our center for a therapeutic consultation. We discussed the difficulties she had faced. During this session, the size of the tumor decreased. When she went home, she was on her way to getting better again.

Frances

Frances is another patient who had an internal dialogue with her cancer in her visualization exercise. Frances came to us for treatment after being diagnosed with a recurrence of lymphoma, a form of cancer that affects the lymphatic system. Her visualization exercises included imagining the cancer being destroyed by the chemo and by her white blood cells. She then imagined that her bone marrow remained healthy and produced more white blood cells that then mixed in to fight the disease.

Frances writes poetry and keeps a journal of her ideas, her inspirations and her dreams. The following is an excerpt from her book “Any time now” She describes her first contact with an inner guide, in the guise of her bone marrow.

Diary May 15, 1976

4 p.m. I read Mark a new poem about a snake. His suggestions make the poem better and me sad.

8 p.m. I meditate and do my visualization exercise. Suddenly I can’t see my bone marrow in front of me, none of it at all. I wondered what was going on. Why am I punishing myself? The answer came immediately: I let Mark change my snake poem. I allow him to say, This is what you mean and that is not – he stripped my poem of its meaning.

I understood what my bone marrow made clear to me: I am the source – of all creativity, of all good – the white bodies that bring healing come from me – I am the center – the dynamo in this body – of the life force.

I promised myself that I would return my poem to its original meaning.

I saw before me thousands of white bodies flowing from the bone marrow into the blood, they moved with that cellular shimmer, the flowing movement we call life. They soothed, calmed and nourished. They killed the abnormal cells.

And I could glimpse again into my bone marrow – glistening – in its moist and golden aura. Suddenly I remembered the snake under the Acropolis (in “The bull from the sea”) – Theseus trying to free the besieged inhabitants of Athens – an old woman watching over the goddess’ snake shows him a secret way out, right through the hill. They stop and look down a deep shaft – the snake, very old, dedicated to the goddess – the old woman feeds the snake – the snake eats – a good omen, his action will prosper.

I now understand that in my glistening bone marrow resides the power of the universe – and I suppose that the autonomy I seek to achieve must be based on this science. I must respect the life force as it is in me and it is in me, generated by the bone marrow, the source of my blood and the possessor of the genetic codes.

In the ensuing period, Frances gained much valuable information about her emotional reactions to everyday events from whether or not the image of her bone marrow was present during her visualization exercises.

Simonton therapy: The inner guide in the form of a (funny) animal

From our experience, the inner guide of our patients appears in most cases in the guise of a venerable authority or another important figure of great symbolic significance. However, Dr. David Brester and Dr. Art Ulene have also had good results with inner guides in the guise of funny fantasy characters. Brester who is affiliated with the pain clinic at UCLA Medical School has his patients use their imagination to contact their inner guide as a source of information about their pain. He often advises his patients to give their guide the guise of a funny animal, such as “Charles the frog. Despite their idiosyncrasies, these figures help patients identify which events in their lives are pain-provoking.

Ulene, who gives health advice on the TV program “Today show,” describes a method similar to Brester’s in his book “Feeling fine. Ulene advises people to create an advisor in the form of an animal that allows them to call on their right brain to help them solve problems. This right hemisphere is concerned with intuitive, symbolic functions, the left mainly with logical, rational functions. He describes the animal figure and the visualization exercise as follows:

The animal, of course, is nothing but a symbol of your inner self, and conversations with the animal are ultimately conversations you have with yourself, but at a brain wavelength you don’t often use. Recently, I had my own animal, a rabbit named Corky, solve a problem related to my work. For days I had searched for a solution. In vain. A lot of frustration, a lot of tension. At one point, I decided to bring in Corky. I closed the door to my room, closed the curtains and sank into my chair. I imagined myself at my relaxation spot – a ski slope in Mammoth. Within seconds, Corky was on the scene. I presented my problems to him and asked him what I should do. ‘You shouldn’t do anything at all,’ the rabbit replied without hesitation. ‘Let Frank handle the situation. It’s not your problem.’ Why hadn’t I thought of that before? It was the right answer, although I had not come up with it despite days of pondering.

I called Frank (he handles my business for my television program) and told him about the conversation with the rabbit. Frank agreed to take the matter further. I immediately felt better. I admit that the solution had been obvious all along. But that’s just it. For the verbal side of my brain, it was not obvious. Only when I enlisted my animal friend did I come to other solutions.

Ulene’s approach is simple and direct. There is nothing secretive about it, so your conversations with your inner guide do not require you to conform to mystical or religious notions.

The inner guide: basic exercise

We found that in all cases this exercise made a valuable contribution to patient recovery. We therefore recommend that you do this exercise. The various steps we describe below are designed to…

Click here for The Inner Guide basic exercise.