A Trial Psychosomatic Treatment for Cancer - Meaningful Life Therapy

The author is a physician, mainly practicing internal medicine, and engaged daily in the treatment of people with cancer and intractable diseases in a hospital setting. He has been developing a psychosomatic treatment of cancer for about 20 years, which has been called 'Meaningful Life Therapy'. This therapy is psychologically based on Morita therapy, which was developed in Japan; psycho-oncology is its academic base. Meaningful Life Therapy takes a psycho-educational approach to study five psycho-social living guidelines through correspondence education, individual study, and group study. It combines unique methods including humor, image training, painting therapy, quizzes, diary advice, and joint experiential study. The author's experiments revealed that resistance against cancer is enhanced by appreciating and laughing at humor and practicing image training. Furthermore, studies carried out in Europe showed that psychological treatment for cancer patients greatly lowers both recurrence and mortality rates.