The reason why clinical science has not solved the riddle of cancer may not lie totally within the realm of the laboratory. It may lie in part in the mind and emotions of the patient. After two decades of research and psychotherapeutic work with cancer patients, Lawrence LeShan offers new evidence and startling insights into why some individuals get cancer while others do not--and why some are able to fight successfully for their lives while others rapidly succumb to the disease. Dr. LeShan has accumulated strong evidence that the mind can make the body receptive to cancer--and that the mind is also capable of fighting back. This is a book of hope. For while cancer kills, it can also be killed. You Can Fight For Your Life is a major humanistic work by an author with a passionate commitment to life.

We therapists care very much about our profession and work hard at it. However, the overall outcome is often not what we wish. We get some excellent results, but a number of our patients do not make the progress we hope for them. One reason for these disheartening results is our belief that there is a best method for therapy, the method in which we were trained, which we use for all or nearly all of our patients. We all know that there is no one-size-fits-all psychotherapy, yet we generally continue to act as if there is and that, by a curious coincidence, it is ours. Our myopia ignores the diversity of the people who come to see us, some of whom would respond best to one kind of therapy, some to another. Another assumption that lowers our success rate stems from psychotherapy's mixed heritage. Because our history comes half from medicine (with its emphasis on curing) and half from the wise men and women of the tribes as well as the spiritual directors of organized religion (with their emphasis on healing), we often confuse the two. Curing, which involves the easing of psychological or physical pain, needs one approach. Healing, which concerns helping one grow in his or her individual way in order that the person may better cope with present and future problems, calls for another. Using vivid and detailed clinical examples, Beyond Technique shows how to change to get the therapeutic goals you want. Dr. LeShan demonstrates the means to create individual psychotherapy tailored to each patients's needs. With this perspective, LeShan brings psychotherapy into the present, revealing its improved form for the future.

What Linneaus did for biology, LeShan does for human consciousness and behavior - provide a classification system for aspects and states of consciousness. This framework contains both the objective and subjective aspects of life and shows that they can be intelligibly connected.

Psychotherapist Lawrence LeShan has worked with cancer patients for more than thirty-five years and his research has led people with cancer to find new, effective ways to fight for their lives. He has put his findings--full of meaning and purpose--into this revised edition that shows how psychological change, along with medical treatment, mobilizes a compromised immune system for healing. Included is a life-transforming workbook of hands-on exercises designed to help readers evaluate their inner selves and teach them how to get the most out of their immune systems by leading fuller, richer lives.