Dear all,
which NLP processes would you recommend for cancer patients?

I think that NLP can be a very powerful tool for those who wish to fully mobilize internal resources and use the subconscious mind to regain health.

Six-steps reframing comes to mind, as do the usual "projector process".

Any other suggestions?

Grateful for any and all feedback!


Cheers,
Andrew Yassin

Hi Andrew

I would recommend [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beliefs-Pathways-Wellbeing-Robert-Dilts/dp/1555520294]Beliefs: Pathways to Health and Wellbeing: Robert B. Dilts, etc., Tim Hallbom, Suzi Smith: Amazon.co.uk: Books[/ame] Robert wrote this book with his two co-authors based on how he used NLP to help his own Mother deal with Cancer.

You might also do some research this Jim Humble's Personal Writings and Methods of using the Miracle Mineral Supplement. MMS seems to be having a lot of success helping to fight Cancer- I started using MMS two weeks ago for other health reasons- and I am having positive results using it- check out MMSDR Home Page if you join the site which is free- you can watch a host of videos YouTube - MMSDRHealth's Channel in how MMS is working for a lot of people- Its really important to do a lot of reasech as is needed to feel safe in considering using such a supplemnt-

Jay

Dear Andrew,

I would point you in the direction of,

"Beliefs, Pathways to Health and Well-Being" by Robert Dilts, Tim Hallbom and Suzi Smith

a little gem of a book in my opinion.

While recovery is still a realistic option, some of the ideas and techniques outlined in this book will, I think, be of interest to you. Try also researching some of the work of Arielle Essex.

Unfortunately the western medical model and NLP are not entirely congruent if you examine the initial presuppositions, but that is for you to resolve as a would be practitioner.

However, in the pragmatic world in which we currently live, not all cancer patients are going to be well in the end. It depends somewhat on the stage of the disease, as I am sure you are aware, along with the congruence of the practitioner, and the health beliefs of the patient.

I trained extensively with a successful healer some years ago. Part of healing, she taught me, is also the art of helping people to die well, if that makes any sense at all. And in this regard, I think NLP has a lot to offer too. Better perhaps to offer no hope rather than false hope as it may be more genuine, and help a terminal patient come to terms with their mistakes, regrets, inflicted hurts etc while they still can. This is I believe a real service also. The applications of NLP to this agenda are obvious I think.

I look forward to your and others' replies.

MH

Not everyone will be the same kind of success story, but Dilts' mother lived another 12 years in good health with no cancer.

Not sure how I feel about not offering hope while you're shifting beliefs. Seems to me a lot of doctors excel at leaving a trail of hopeless patients in their wakes. I've inherited a few as clients who once believed some horribly hypnotic things told them by health professionals. I'd rather see someone believe in themself.

And when it's time to leave the planet, then I'm sure there's a great deal of good to be done there, also. Cure what you will, we're all going eventually!

BMcKenna wrote:

Not everyone will be the same kind of success story, but Dilts' mother lived another 12 years in good health with no cancer.

It may be wrong but I thought Dilts also mentioned, ironically, that the doctor was also diagnosed with cancer and committed suicide.

John

While "Beliefs: The Pathway to Health and Well-being" is a good book, I think, the authors have not done full justice when it came to explaining how exactly they used their technology for curing cancer.

Dilts has just mentioned in the beginning of the book about helping his mother by changing her beliefs, but he then moves on to explaining the structure as well as other aspects of beliefs and then moves on to Re-imprintng. It could have been more helpful if he would have explained how exactly he helped his mother; at least an overview. Since, helping a cancer patient is not a simple issue and requires much expertise, such an explanation is very apt and laudable.

Just my thoughts.

I have heard a number of times that serious illness can often be preceded by a major life event a couple of years before. Death of a partner, relationship breakup and so on.

It may be valuable to explore that and to help them re frame that event, particularly in the light of how things turned out.

It will certainly improve their life and it may help with the illness. As the map around that event changes so will many other things.

thankx for quick replies.
I have ordered the Dilts book.
Still, which NLP processes would you consider?

Regards,
Andrew

Many years ago Richard Bandler worked with Barbara Stepp - his goal was to make her look younger and he used regression to do this. Unbeknown to him, Barbara had skin cancer, and as a result of that session her cancer went away.

This session is recorded onto a CD "Aventures into Health" which also includes a transcript of the session as well as an interview between Richard and Barbara.

Barbara is still fit and healthy some many many years later and is now a Master Trainer of NLP.

You can find our more details about Barbara and purchase this product from her website www.excelquest.com or you can also purchase the product from my website www.tina-taylor.com and save on the US postage.

wow,...This is one greatest revelation. It is incredible and unbelievable yet TRUE. The feeling that CANCER can be WON is voila, like MAGICAL Thanksgiving. May all be blessed with the availability of a great epical person like RICHARD BANDLER. NLP community is growing healthy by the minute around the world. GOD BLESS ALL SUFFERING.

Hi All,

Bridget, you wrote,

"Not sure how I feel about not offering hope while you're shifting beliefs."

Well, yes. I wrote what I did in a spirit of approaching such matters with caution rather than misplaced enthusiasm or confidence. It kind of depends whether or not the patient (in this instance) believes that beliefs can be changed, and many other variables such as practitioner congruence and skill, knowledge of the disease progression etc.

And, again from Bridget,

"Seems to me a lot of doctors excel at leaving a trail of hopeless patients in their wakes. I've inherited a few as clients who once believed some horribly hypnotic things told them by health professionals."

Yes, this too happens with monotonous regularity, and unfortunately all too many patients invest their consultant with the power to make such predictions. Of course we should seek to address the embedded commands about imminent demise where we can, so long as the patient is willing to work on that level.

In response to the original post, and repeated question posed by Andrew

"Still, which NLP processes would you consider?"

personally I would resist saying do this technique or that process as a treatment for cancer. We are not talking about a fast phobia cure after all. Any intervention is, I think, to be carefully considered and formulated from what can be modelled from the patient's presenting construct. To suggest that there is an NLP paradigm for cancer I do not think is realistic and might perpetuate the bad name of NLP in certain circles.

However I do not wish to sound sceptical to the point of being cynical or defeatist. The outcomes for those treated by Dilts or Bandler are fantastic of course, but most of us can only dream about their level of skill.

Which brings me to my next comment.

Tina wrote,

"Many years ago Richard Bandler worked with Barbara Stepp - his goal was to make her look younger and he used regression to do this. Unbeknown to him, Barbara had skin cancer, and as a result of that session her cancer went away."

Now granted I have not bought the product, but how do you know that her remission was as a direct result of Bandler's intervention ? I am not saying that it wasn't, but how can it be demonstrated to be so ? Was she in any other form of treatment for her cancer at the time ? I am of course glad to hear about her full recovery.

FWIW I really do believe that NLP has very much to offer on the interface between psychology and physical dis-ease, not just in terms of working towards possible cures or remissions, but also in adding to or enhancing other treatments like the tolerance of chemotherapy side effects, organ transplant tolerances or pain managment for example.

Like most folk, I have lost people close to me through cancer. I am also an experienced NLP Master Practitioner and am interested in working to my full potential capacity to help, or course. Any reservations I might have are based on my ignorance of the details of oncology and a sincere desire to be real and genuine towards patients rather than self deluded through blind optimism. Just as I am not Dilts or Bandler, I am not an oncologist either.

I remain most interested in future posts on this thread.

MH

Malcomb

I know of many healers, NLP Practitioners & Trainers who regularly work with people diagnosed with life challenging diseases, some who have been told that there is nothing medical science can do for them, who have experienced remission and have lived far longer than their doctors have said they should.

Barbara was told by her doctors that the disease she had would kill her and it didn't.

I know of many people like Barbara who have survived such life challenging illnesses and there are probably billions and billions more records of spontaneous remission for others who have also found a way to overcome their illnesses.

As Practitioners of NLP we know that if one person has a successful strategy for something then others can model and use this strategy. Robert Dilts book and Barbaras CDs give us this opportunity.

Dear Tina,

Thanks for your reply.

I do not really doubt that chances of remission can be enhanced using alternative healing technologies, I assure you. Perhaps I just lack confidence in my own skill, and certainly experience to take on such work with confidence ? If you were to say to me that I should go away and do some more work on myself, I would accept that as a valid point of view.

While in many other areas of human difficulties I would be happy to "have a go" I am aware of a reservation on my part with respect to the specific topics in hand. I am not putting medical science on a pedestal either, and am well aware of how the medical model can be limited and wrong sometimes. However, I do not think it can be entirely dismissed either.

I think part of my reservation apparent so far in this thread is the notion that techniques are the key. I do not believe that is the case. I think the healing relationship is paramount which, to me is more about the mind set of the practitoner than the explicit procedures used to advance or promote health, in the widest sense.

NLP itself does not cure cancer, but (some) healers might help to do so. The "technique" might just be the point of contact between practitoner and patient.

It is my belief that when healing is effective, much of it is covert and even unconcious to the operator. Further to that, to glean that kind of information from a book or CD's is, I think, challenging.

I have read the Dilts book a number of times. I recommended it to the original poster, as did Jay. My interest is in demonstrating the effectivness of alternative healing practices beyond a placebo effect or random good fortune as I think inadvertantly generating false expections can do more harm than good. Deliberately doing so is worse of course.

I look forward to more

MH

There is that fine line inbetween giving pople hope and a death sentece. My mother died of Cancer 17 years ago, she was in remission and the doctors told her that she had 6 months to live. She died exactly 6 months later, she believed that she was going to die and died.

I believe that If had the knowledge then that I have now that I could have changed that belief and worked with her; and who knows she may still be here.

Theres a great book you may find interesting its called Love Medicine and Miracles by Bernie Siegel MD. Bernie was an oncologist and wanted to find out why some of his patients who had curable cancers died whilst others who he thought should die lived.

Dear Tina,

I have a similar tragic tale. My father was diagnosed early in 2001 and given 6 months. He survived about 3. Actually it was an embolism that killed him in the end. I qualified as a Master Practitoner in 1996, but was unable to help him, it seemed, well as least in the terms being discussed here. I wish I had been able to more for him than lobby the nurses on his ward about the next available dose of diamorphine.

He was however firmly entrenched in his attachment to the medical model, and even with brain and other metastasis, clung on to the belief that advances in medical science might save him, albeit in a semi deluded and increasingly incoherent manner.

I did try to get him on board with my kind of thinking. I have helped others with health matters to a degree, but the one I wanted to the most, I could not. Unfortunately he put off going to the doctor's with his symptoms until it was way too late, medically at least.

When I have talked on this thread about the health beliefs of the patient being a critical factor, I have him as one inner representation of what I am on about. He was having none of my alternative claptrap, however congruent or passionate I was with my outcome of wanting to help.

This is also why I emphasise the healing relationship, at least part of which, if not all, is about rapport IMO. Unfortunately there was a big mismatch at a beliefs level in this case in point. Nor were we particularly close before he got ill.

At least I got him more diamorphine though.

Thanks for the literature reference. I will persue that one.

Again, I look forward to more.

MH

Malcomb,

For whatever is worth I agree with you.

Relevant anecdote:
In 2003 during a program in Mexico a guy asked Richard Bandler: "what do you do with a cancer patient?" and Richard replied "Everything I can".
The guy said "I mean using NLP" and Richard said "We are talking about a person's life! Why the fuck would you limit yourself to one thing?! I would have around me an oncologist, accupunturist, nutritionist, anyone who could help save that person's life!"
I just talked to Richard about that time a month ago in Madrid and he continues to believe what he replied back in 2003. He will always encourage people to believe in good things such as recovery and he will always put some hope on people's eyes but he knows that isn't always enough.

While I agree with giving people hope and working with their beliefs. It simply is not enough for everyone and it does depend on several aspects. It is just not that simple as only beliving and then becoming well even if using NLP. Otherwise Todd Epstein and Will McDonald would be alive and so would Paula Bandler.
It is STUPID to close our eyes to the facts. People still die of such illnesses even if they are treated with NLP or they are told 1 million times (as Paula was) they will live forever and everything will be ok.

Lets make a distinction between NLP helping SOME cases and NLP being THE cure for such diseases. I've personally have helped people with terrible diseases to get better and yet a few have died. Facts are facts. Barbra Stepp continues to celebrate birthdays and she truly is an example for others. But she did many things (including changing her diet) and continues to do many things to be a healthy person.

There is a fine line between facts and allucinations... understanding the big difference between giving people hope and curing them IS IMPORTANT.

Tina, repectfully I disagree with the presupposition that your mom died because she believed she would. I have met hundreds of people who believe they will die and don't (not in the time frame they thought) and I also have met hundreds of people who believe they will live and don't. Her belief contributed to her death? Most likely but one of the biggest lies in NLP is that beliving = result.
I've met hundreds that believe they can do what Bandler does and guess what they can't. Beliving is just a small portion (important but not the one and only piece) of the whole equation.

Andrew, I still recommend the mentioned books and CDs. There is a product I believe is called Soften or Sften II from Bandler which includes an induction he used to help another case of cancer. I would also use a variation of the Decision Destroyer technique. But as Richard said.... do everything you can, and do not limit yourself to one thing.

Have a nice day
Gabe

Dear Gabe,

Thank you so much for your contribution to this thread.

You preface it with "for whatever it is worth...."

To me it is worth perhaps more than you realise. I have often reflected on my own perceived lack of involvement in my father's demise.

I have often thought about what I might have done differently at that difficult time, and sure that is there, and the outcome may well have been the same, as you highlight so well.

Really, thank you, it helps me respect that he died in a way, as he lived, and despite my individuality from him, maybe securing the extra diamorphine really was the best I could do at the time.

Regards, sincerely

MH

gabe wrote:

Malcomb,

For whatever is worth I agree with you.

Relevant anecdote:
In 2003 during a program in Mexico a guy asked Richard Bandler: "what do you do with a cancer patient?" and Richard replied "Everything I can".
The guy said "I mean using NLP" and Richard said "We are talking about a person's life! Why the fuck would you limit yourself to one thing?! I would have around me an oncologist, accupunturist, nutritionist, anyone who could help save that person's life!"
I just talked to Richard about that time a month ago in Madrid and he continues to believe what he replied back in 2003. He will always encourage people to believe in good things such as recovery and he will always put some hope on people's eyes but he knows that isn't always enough.

While I agree with giving people hope and working with their beliefs. It simply is not enough for everyone and it does depend on several aspects. It is just not that simple as only beliving and then becoming well even if using NLP. Otherwise Todd Epstein and Will McDonald would be alive and so would Paula Bandler.
It is STUPID to close our eyes to the facts. People still die of such illnesses even if they are treated with NLP or they are told 1 million times (as Paula was) they will live forever and everything will be ok.

Lets make a distinction between NLP helping SOME cases and NLP being THE cure for such diseases. I've personally have helped people with terrible diseases to get better and yet a few have died. Facts are facts. Barbra Stepp continues to celebrate birthdays and she truly is an example for others. But she did many things (including changing her diet) and continues to do many things to be a healthy person.

There is a fine line between facts and allucinations... understanding the big difference between giving people hope and curing them IS IMPORTANT.

Tina, repectfully I disagree with the presupposition that your mom died because she believed she would. I have met hundreds of people who believe they will die and don't (not in the time frame they thought) and I also have met hundreds of people who believe they will live and don't. Her belief contributed to her death? Most likely but one of the biggest lies in NLP is that beliving = result.
I've met hundreds that believe they can do what Bandler does and guess what they can't. Beliving is just a small portion (important but not the one and only piece) of the whole equation.

Andrew, I still recommend the mentioned books and CDs. There is a product I believe is called Soften or Sften II from Bandler which includes an induction he used to help another case of cancer. I would also use a variation of the Decision Destroyer technique. But as Richard said.... do everything you can, and do not limit yourself to one thing.

Have a nice day
Gabe

Gabe,
Your posts are always a breath of fresh air.

Gabe,
What would Flowers like ROSE mean to you if you did not have any smell or Only WHITE color on them ?
REIKI has been of help alongwith other Non-Invasive Therapy disciplines. NLP is one greatest big-event of this ERA. Kudos to all those who took pains and sleepless nights in codifying it and are still doing it. Great are those people in NLP who are still trying their wee bit of effort to save a dying-patient. My heart and efforts go wherever such an activity is seen. These are GODS ANGELS AMONGST US. JESUS LOVES YOU.

andrewyassin wrote:

Dear all,
which NLP processes would you recommend for cancer patients?

I think that NLP can be a very powerful tool for those who wish to fully mobilize internal resources and use the subconscious mind to regain health.

Six-steps reframing comes to mind, as do the usual "projector process".

Any other suggestions?

Grateful for any and all feedback!


Cheers,
Andrew Yassin

Dear Andrew,

I just wanted to let you know there is now a resource available on NLP and Healing - an NLP Edition of The Healing Pool magazine offers some great ways to help reduce pain, by Increasing Comfort - Brian Colbert, and how give people hope for helping them heal and get better, and how to neutralise Dr/Hospital staff negative suggestions (well meant but poorly understood use of language - also see Magic in Practice - by Garner Thompson) - by Shelle Rose Charvet.. and lots more ideas in this publication.

You can download it at http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/the-healing-pool-magazine-special-nlp-edition/7297650

I hope this helps you and other's like you who want insights from those that really know what they are doing.

Love Nina x