The symbolic relationship of breast cancer patients to their cancer, cure, physician, and themselves.

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This study examined the type of unconscious relationship patients had to their cancer and the extent to which the cancer exhibited its presence through the unconscious of the patients. Before having breast biopsies, 146 tumor patients, between the ages of 17 and 90, were given the Kahn test of symbol arrangement and the lifeline tests. Results of the study using a multivariate analysis of variance that covaried age supported the hypothesis that the presence of a malignant tumor was exhibited prior to biopsy through the unconscious of the patients. Second, compared to the benign tumor patients, the malignant tumor group unconsciously expressed their cure as being more remote. The results suggest that patients whose cancer was expressed through their unconscious before diagnosis may expect to die, despite medical advances which show that early breast cancer detection leads to greater chance of cure. Implications for psychotherapeutic interventions working with patients' belief systems are discussed.