A homeopathic explanation for why people with “schizophrenia” don’t get cancer

Before you read what I am about to say, see the previous blog post on why Dr. Hoffer said people with schizophrenia don’t get cancer. (They have excellent genes.)

I’ve long thought that this group of people don’t get cancer because their mind, not their body, is where they are most vulnerable and that’s where their symptoms will manifest. This is my anecdotal conclusion from observing my own son, although it’s a real ego booster to think he comes from excellent gene stock. His childhood tolerance to physical pain was indeed something to behold. He’s always been a thinker, spending too much time in his head with almost zero focus on his body. That’s why I’ve placed so much effort in the past ten years on finding therapies that stress integrating the body and the mind. I’ve long maintained that when Chris gets physically sick, then I know he’s on the road to balanced health. I’ve cheered every sniffle he very occasionally gets.

I’m reading a fascinating book by Amy Lansky, entitled Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy. In it she writes about each person’s energetic state as having a center of gravity, a homeopathic concept introduced by George Vithoulkas, MD. The center of gravity is a general zone of susceptibility to certain kinds of diseases.

“In his text, The Science of Homeopathy, Vithoulkas describes the center of gravity as a combination of states or vibratory levels in the emotional, mental, and physical realms. Within each of these realms is a range of diseases, from simple and largely benign, to serious and life-threatening. Vithoulkas maintains that individuals resonate only with those diseases that have an affinity to their center of gravity. For example, a psychotic person’s center of gravity is weighted very strongly in the mental and emotional realm, but not as strongly in the physical realm. This explains why psychotic patients do not get as many minor physical illnesses as other people. While they are very susceptible to stimuli that affect their minds, they are not as susceptible to factors that affect their bodies. In contract, a cancer patient’s center of gravity is very severe in the physical realm, but may be quite benign in the mental realm.”

Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy, by Amy Lansky, PhD.

Dr. Abram Hoffer on schizophrenia, cancer, and brilliance

“Schizophrenics have excellent genes. I wish I had them. They hardly ever get cancer. Adrenochrome kills cancer cells; I think the gene is nature’s answer to the cancer pandemic. On the psychological side, they’re brilliant: artists, scientists, poets, philosophers.

The problem is, we don’t feed these genes properly. If you have a million dollar car and you put water in the gas tank, is it going to perform very much for you?”

An Interview with Abram Hoffer, from Rob Wipond’s archives

An Interview with Dr. Abram Hoffer

Recovery in a nutshell: Self worth

In this trailer for Art and Craft, a documentary about his life as an art forger, Mark Landis, who was given a schizophrenia diagnosis as a teen, has a lot to say about recovery, if you listen carefully to what he is saying.

Watch this clip then imagine being a young man diagnosed as schizophrenic, whose troubles are compounded when people shun him and consider him useless. He retreats into a lonely adult life of watching television. Were it not for his hospital art therapy class, his talents in copying works of art might have gone unrecognized and he may not have found a calling.

Listen to what he has to say about why he masqueraded as a philanthropist giving away works of famous painters he had forged:

“I got addicted to being a philanthropist I wasn’t used to have anyone treat me like this. . . Everyone was so nice and respectful —things I was quite unfamiliar with.”

“It seldom happened that people were nice to me.”

“We all like to feel useful. Whatever ability we happen to have we like to make use of it.”

“(This documentary) gave me something to do because I’m really just a lonely old shy man.”

Imagine, for a moment, if people close to Mr. Landis learned early on how to draw him out as a human being. He might not be the lonely old shy man he says he is today.

The diagnosis, and the way friends and family react to the diagnosis, sets up feelings of hopelessness and despair for all. How can a solid recovery take hold in this environment?

See also Elusive Forger, but Never Stealing

An excellent course in the fundamentals of recovery:
Families Healing Together

America’s most generous con artist

America’s most generous con artist
By Jason Caffrey
BBC World Service
31 March 2015 From the section Magazine

“As a teenager Landis had suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of his father, and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Art therapy revealed his talent for copying, and he was able to turn out fakes at astonishing speed.”

Read the rest here

Father Hank Nunn of Bangalore

I tried to get in touch with Father Hank at the Athma Shakti Vidyalaya Society a few years ago when I was desperate enough to consider sending Chris all the way across the world for treatment in India. Father Hank’s name does come up from time to time when people are looking for a center that has a minimal to zero use of medications and a more humane view of “mental illness.” Father Hank was influenced by Jaqui Schiff and transactional analysis.

Transactional analysis “offers a theory for child development by explaining how our adult patterns of life originated in childhood. This explanation is based on the idea of a “Life (or Childhood) Script”: the assumption that we continue to re-play childhood strategies, even when this results in pain or defeat. Thus it claims to offer a theory of psychopathology.”(Wikipedia)

Thank you Taylor and WordPress!

Today I migrated my old blog from Blogger to WordPress. I’d been putting off the decision to migrate for quite a while because old habits die hard. It was just so much easier not to have to deal with what seemed like an overwhelming task. My youngest son Taylor, a web designer, took over the project. He used one of the WordPress templates, and tweaked it to reflect my design preferences, which if you compare my old blog to this new one you will see that the new design is a deconstructed version of the old one. (Yes, I know I could have done all this myself, but my priorities for the past few months were to finish my memoir of healing. I’m almost there.)

Why WordPress? Because I was jealous of everybody else’s WordPress blogs. They looked professional. Blogger’s limitations made my blog look increasingly “homemade,” which is fine in one sense (looking “sincere”) but not going to cut it when it comes time to promote my book: Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: A Mother and Son Journey.

By switching to WordPress I have a better look, better indexing and an optimized search engine.

Please bear with me over the next few months as I learn to navigate my way around. I’ll also be restoring some of the pages from my old blog that are missing right now.

You can find me now at rossaforbes.com So much easier than holisticschizophrenia.com which depends on people’s ability to spell SCHIZOPHRENIA AND HOLISTIC. You won’t believe the number of people who think “holistic” starts with a “w.”

A Theological Interpretation of Mental illness-A Focus on “Schizophrenia”

originally posted on the Beyond Meds blog

JANUARY 11, 2015 BY 

by Elahe Hessamfar

A book: In the Fellowship of His Suffering: A Theological Interpretation of Mental Illness – A Focus on ”Schizophrenia”

fellowshipMy precious daughter, Helia, was diagnosed with “schizophrenia” fourteen years ago at age of 23. Her illness was sudden and shocking to all who knew her. Helia had a good life by all worldly standards.  She was stunningly beautiful, with a kind and sweet personality. She had recently graduated from one of the country’s top universities.  She had a good job and had recently been promoted.  She lived in NYC, the city she loved, was about to be engaged to the man she deeply loved, and was very involved in her local church.  She was a devout Christian who had had a major conversion experience while she was in college, and whose life was centered on her faith in God.
Read more here

Person of the Year – Corinna West

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“If you want to know how young black people overcome adversity, we’ve got over 400 videos up on the Poetry for Personal Power You Tube channel.” (Corinna West)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLePxiZ4YtCeC0OhvrPpWT85owrVIu4aQ1

Corinna West is the one woman dynamo behind Poetry for Personal Power, a mental health social inclusion campaign that encourages young people struggling with mental health issues to get up on stage and communicate. She founded Wellness Wordworks in 2008 to show how the recovery community can provide internet skills and business opportunities to their peers. I’ve always been impressed with Corinna’s entrepreneurial and community leadership skills. She seems to have zillions of “I can do” ideas in her head. Corinna’s enthusiasm for social change is infectious, not to mention she’s got a master’s degree in pharmaceutical chemistry with lived experience, having survived homelessness and 12 psychiatric diagnoses.

An amazing woman.

Today’s Obituary

P. D. James, Novelist Known as ‘Queen of Crime,’ Dies at 94

Ms. James gave birth to the first of her two daughters in 1942, during a bombing blitz. She served as a Red Cross nurse during the war. When her husband returned from military service with a severe mental disability, marked by bouts of violence, that kept him virtually confined to hospitals and unable to work, Ms. James was forced to support her family. She went to work for the National Health Service and attended night classes in hospital administration.

Read more here

New family education course starts soon

Families Healing Together

OCTOBER 17, 2014 BY 

families healingBy Krista MacKinnon

I’ve worked in the mental health system for twelve years now, and prior to that was a patient for three. My family was educated to believe that I would be sick my whole life, and that they should have very little hope for my future. When I became a family counsellor, I vowed to never “educate” anyone in such a way. Since then, I’ve watched “Recovery” grow from a subversive whisper to a full-blown growing paradigm in mental health services. Countries have adopted Recovery and implemented its model into their health care planning, academics have studied it and written thousands of articles in peer-reviewed journals,  organizations have restructured and reorganized their teams to reflect it’s principles, and brave everyday people have told their personal recovery stories to friends, colleagues, conferences, and the media. Recovery is a strong political force, a narrative, a system, a way of life, and a tool. So why then, has this incredible force of “Recovery” not leaked its way over to Family Education? 
READ MORE HERE