Repressiveness: Cause or result of cancer?

Psycho-Oncology - Tập 2 Số 1 - Trang 43-54 - 1993
Shulamith Kreitler1, Samario Chaitchik2, Hans Kreitlers3,4
1Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, and Institute of Oncology, Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel
2Director, Institute of Oncology, Ichilov Hospital Tel Aviv, and Sackler School of Medicine Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
3Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
4Died 7 January 1993.

Tóm tắt

AbstractRepression is commonly assumed to be a major characteristic of the cancer‐prone personality. Main supporting evidence includes studies showing that cancer patients are low in emotional expression and that repressives have shorter survival. The evidence did not seem compelling, mainly because of contrary findings, overlooking the age factor and the assessment instruments. Thus, we examined whether repression is a response to the threat posed by the cancer diagnosis and whether cancer patients are more repressive, using a new assessment method combining anxiety and defensiveness scores and controlling age. The subjects were 98 women comprising three groups comparable in demographic characteristics: (a) breast biopsy showed they were healthy (n = 40), (b) biopsy showed they had breast cancer (n = 32), and (c) underwent surgery unrelated to cancer (n = 26). Only post‐surgery groups a and b knew the diagnosis. Questionnaires of information and repression were administered to all women pre‐ and post‐surgery. Before surgery, the groups did not differ in repression, anxiety and defensiveness. Post‐surgery, there were no differences in anxiety but MANOVA and X2 analyses showed that, in the malignancy group, defensiveness and the number of repressors increased more than in the other groups. The results indicate that repression could be a response to the threat posed by the cancer diagnosis and a means for keeping anxiety at a tolerable level rather than a personality trait of cancer patients.

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Psycho-Oncology

Tập 2 Số 1

43-54

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