LIVING AND DYING WITH CANCER

Honolulu Advertiser, February 6, 1978

By Mary Cooke

Advertiser Staff Writer

Dr. Mitsuo Aoki, professor of religion at the University of Hawaii, believes that nurturing the spirit and the physical body are but two halves of a whole, and together they add up to total health.

Aoki, in the vanguard of non-medical practitioners of "holistic" health, makes a distinction between the physician’s task of curing illness and his (Aoki’s) work of "healing the patient."

"I use the word ‘heal’ in the old sense of ‘making whole again’," he said.

Borrowing from old-new disciplines, he has come up with a course of mind-and-body-coordinated techniques through which he teaches patients to fight disease.

He also prescribes these techniques for depression, mental distress, pain, tension, anxiety, and as preventive measures to ward off illness.

To the uninitiated, the basic methods sound almost too simple: Relaxation, imagery and the patient’s concentration on his own immunization process.

Aoki said they are geared to:

1. Eliminating tension-related obstructions to the flow of universal life force within the patient.
2. Activating the belief systems of the mind and body.
3. Allowing the life force to proceed with its work of natural healing.

"If you saw the film ‘Star Wars’," Aoki said, "you remember the wise man saying ‘Use the Force.’

"That’s what we use. The life force.

"The Chinese call it Chi, Japanese call it Ki, Hindus call it Prana, Hawaiians call it Mana. In our western culture we call it the Spirit of God."

Aoki is convinced that "using the life force" should have equal time with medical treatment of the patient.

"Pacific peoples generally are ahead in this kind of consciousness," he said. "In our western culture, science and technology have torn apart the belief systems."

He said the first step toward "letting the life force work" is to relax the individual.

"You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing," he cautioned. "If you have any doubt, it will short circuit the process. The belief system is so important in this work.

"When I speak of relaxation, I always mean the total person. Mind and body must always work together.

"However, many people try too hard, the opposite of relaxing, and that kills it. You must just go with it, flow with it.

"Now sit comfortably in your chair and close your eyes, the better to inwardly direct yourself."

He said to visualize one part of the body at a time, starting with the right leg, then the left, telling them to relax.

Again and again he gave the order to relax, directing it progressively to the lower torso, upper torso, each arm, the shoulders, neck, jaw, mouth, eyes and forehead.

"That’s good," he said. "Now, still keeping your eyes closed, we’re going to relax your mind.

The method: Imagine yourself in beautiful, peaceful surroundings, some favorite spot that brings a feeling of contentment.

"Now," said Aoki after a brief silence, "your whole being is relaxed. Savor that feeling, then count to five and open your eyes."

You open your eyes. Your mood is quiet but alert. You’re refreshed, feeling no strain.

"That took us one minute and a half," he said.

"Actually, it’s not the relaxing itself that is important. It’s what it does as a means to let the life force flow. When you can let that happen, it’s going to do a lot of things."

For starters, it makes you receptive to calling up images and utilizing them, the next step in Aoki’s therapy.

"This is a technique used by people in athletics," Aoki said. "They already see themselves winning the race or shooting the perfect hole. They envision the perfection of their goal.

"So when I work with cancer patients, I have them envision themselves whole again, the cancer in remission.

"Just as the athlete envisions the completion of his goal and lets his body follow through, this imagery removes barriers, removes all the negatives.

"There is a more elaborate form which takes longer, but the process is simple: It is to help the patient to imagine, very clearly, where his cancer is and the nature of it.

"Most people have an X-ray, so we start with that. I say, ‘Describe to me what you see there.’ While the patient describes it he is getting very relaxed. That’s the nature of imaging."

Next, Aoki instructs the patient to visualize his own immunization process at work, to see in his mind’s eye the white cells of his body devouring the sick cancer cells.

"And by that, he sees the immunization process, or the life force, taking charge.

"This whole technique is really giving hope back to him, with the idea that he has something to do with it, that he can continue the therapy of letting the life force come through and do its work.

"We always complete the act with what we call ‘wholeness’: Seeing oneself whole, visualizing the tissue perfectly clean and healthy, with no ravages. We do this three times a day."

Aoki uses the same technique to cope with pain.

"Pain is not physical only," he said. "Anxiety makes pain more intense.

"What this therapy does is to remove all the anxieties, to let the patient realize he is in charge."

The preceding sentence must be accepted before the patient gets into the heaviest trip in Aoki’s therapy.

"Some people claim that the most awesome cause of cancer is not something called virus or bacteria. It is emotional health," he said.

"If you approach it from this point of view, one of the processes is to ask the patient, ‘What is the meaning of your cancer?’

"This can be unpleasant because you are saying, ‘You are the cause.’

"This comes later in therapy, say four or five months after we’ve built together in trust and the patient is ready to review this question.

"He can look back and see where the hurts were that broke his system down and let cancer in.

"He’s had lots of time to think, recalling many incidents of guilt, shame, resentment, despair – the negative things – things that either the patient has done wrong, or he has been wronged by others.

"When a crisis emerged, if he said, ‘I don’t have the resources to deal with this, he put a heavy burden on himself.

"Instead of saying, ‘That’s the best I could do,’ people tend to say, ‘I didn’t do enough.’

"They blame themselves, or they give up in despair and go around in a resentful, negative frame of mind.

"That’s just as bad as having guilt. The body picks up all our attitudes and images and feelings.

"Now if you want to change the person, you’ve got to change his reactions. You cannot do that without, in some way, changing the body.

"That’s why we start therapy with relaxation."

But again, it’s not just physical. It’s total relaxation of the mind and body.

"In our cultural milieu most people, when they hear the word cancer, think it’s all pau (finished). They don’t realize there are a lot of things that can be done.

"Naturally, when you get sick the body is trying to tell you something. But the damn trouble is, we kill that by pills and tranquilizers, so we don’t develop a sensitivity to the sickness.

"The work of the body is for its natural healing. It’s built in.

"So now we see that we better have another approach to cancer besides the normally used radiation and chemotherapy.

"We better do something else on the other side."

Aoki said he began "doing something on the other side" by working with patients and assisting hospital staffs on a volunteer basis.

"I try not to conduct long-term treatment with a patient because I don’t have that much time," he said.

"What I do is to train other people who can do this work on their own. So far, I’ve trained about 30 individuals. Some are University students, some are doctors who wanted to learn these techniques.

"I don’t charge when I work with a patient. I think of it as a work of grace. The people I’ve trained do charge because it is their life work."

Aoki said names of his trainees are available by calling Corky Lederer, coordinator of "The Health Net" at the Church of the Crossroads.