Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

of, while the body was studied and examined by medical science. This perspective has
changed dramatically during the last 20 years, and today psyche and soma are
considered equally important in the research and treatment of life-threatening diseases
like cancer. Even if the majority of all cancer research is biomedical the field as a
whole operates within a holistic biopsychosocial understanding of the disease and the
factors influencing it: biological, psychological, behavioural and social factors are
considered equally important. Thus, cancer is understood as a multifactorial disease
influenced not only by biological heritage, but also by stress, infections, food intake
and environment. The last four factors are especially relevant in prophylactic work, as
the majority of cancer cases may be prevented, because they are related to changeable
behavioural and environmental factors. Psycho-oncological cancer research has
studied the influence of factors mediating between the independent variables of
cancer disease and treatment on the one hand, and outcomes like quality of life
(physiological, psychological, social), survival and recurrence on the other hand.
These mediating, individual psychosocial factors include emotional and cognitive
coping, social support (e.g. networking), patient attitudes (‘fighting spirit’ vs.
helplessness) and the patient-physician relationship (Achterberg et al 1976 in
Zachariae 2002). According to Zachariae (2002) state of the art can be summarized as
follows:
(1) The influence of stress on the immune system has been researched for decades.
Uncontrolled stress is known to influence the immune system negatively,
including advance in the growth of tumors (Visintainer and Volpicelli 1982 in
Zachariae 2002). However, it is not likely that stress can be considered a cause of
cancer, since stress as related to negative life events may be modified by many
other varaibales, such as personality traits and social relationships traits
(Zachariae 2002).
(2) Personal factors, especially coping styles are known to influence cancer prognosis.
Some factors enhancing the risk of developing cancer have been identified: a
distant relationship with parents, emotional repression (especially repression of
anxiety, anger and negative emotions), and helplessness (Fox 1995 in Zachariae
2002). However, connections between these and other personal factors and cancer
have not been explained. An example: data indicate that emotional repression is
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