Self-healers often report what the researcher Ikemi called an "existential shift" in the way they view themselves and their lives (another physician calls it "a psycho-social-emotional-spiritual about-face"). Psychologist Lawrence LeShan, quoting the poet W. H. Auden, talks about a rekindling of "foiled creative fire." One study cites a man with an inoperable brain tumor who made a remarkable recovery after resuming a long-abandoned singing career. Other researchers refer to "a shift from dependence to autonomy", sometimes beginning at the very moment of diagnosis. Says former cancer patient Peter Hettel: "As soon as I was diagnosed, I was scared, sure, but I also felt like I'd been given a hall pass: All right. No one's gonna tell me what to do now. No one can argue with fatality. I had an honorable way of dumping these imposed responsibilities and putting myself first."
Regression
Psychiatrist Ainslee Meares postulated self-healing might stem from a "return to an earlier mode of function," a state that he called "mental ataraxis" and compared to states like hypnosis and absorption. Mitchell May remembers Jack Gray telling him that healing "was the art of doing absolutely nothing. When you learn to do nothing, everything is possible." This "return to an earlier mode" often seems to include long-buried memories of childhood. Self-healers often describe pleasure in giving way to almost irresistible urges to behave "childishly."
Active Surrender
Says Mitchell May: "When I woke up from my accident, I did not feel, why did this happen to me? I've always felt life just is. It's not either fair or not fair. The universe doesn't arrange itself around my ego." Patients told me they had felt that the moment they could clearly imagine their own deaths was a powerful turning point in their healing process. ("I lay in hospital bed saying I have cancer, I have ovarian cancer," said one, "till I could say it without cringing.") At the same time, other researchers have observed a kind of selective denial, as one put it, "They didn't deny the seriousness of their terminal diagnoses, but they denied that they themselves would succumb."
Altered States
Qualities like high hypnotizability, fantasy-proneness, and even dissociation seem to be correlated with self-healing abilities. Many people reported having exceptionally vivid dreams and perceptual alterations during their healing process. As a somewhat prim-looking, middle-aged survivor of advanced ovarian cancer recalls, "Life became, well, psychedelic. I remember one gloomy, cold, dark, Northeastern winter day. I saw a fire hydrant reflected in a puddle on the pavement and it was like Disney World multiplied by 150 million. It made me realize I want to live more than I ever knew." Altered states are also associated with a mind-body plasticity, which often seems to go back to childhood. Niro Assistent, a rare case of apparent AIDS remission, told me she was able to paralyze her legs in order to get out of school—a paralysis so convincing that physicians could elicit no reflex.
Emotional Expression
Self-healers seem to exhibit strong mood fluctuations. One personality-attitudinal study of longterm cancer survivors concluded they tend to have "more expressive and sometimes bizarre personalities." In another study, exceptional cancer patients scored high on indices like "nonconformity" and "rebellious spirit." Many researchers have also noticed a sort of emotional inconstancy one called "ambivalence." Former patient Peter Hettel told me, "I began to see it's not that one state of mind is good and one is bad, but which state is appropriate to what you are trying to do. When you can shift easily back and forth between them, you don't get stuck."
Social Change
Almost all researchers note a change in interpersonal relationships. Sir David Smithers concluded that a contributing cause of cancer was the "traumatic interaction between the patient and his human environment," and a key healing catalyst was the social milieu's "intentional or accidental" change for the better.
Charles Weinstock, M.D., a former professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine lists the examples of "a sudden fortunate marriage by a woman of 40; a nun's experience of having the entire order engage in intercessory prayer for her; the fortunate death of a decompensated addicted spouse who had blocked the patient's musical career by his dependency; unexpected, enthusiastic praise and encouragement from an expert in one's field."
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