Time Line Therapy® which developed from NLP, has given us new skills in cancer treatment.

“The success rates in treating the big four cancers (breast, colon, lung, and prostate) are dismal. It is obvious that we are looking in the wrong direction for treatment. Instead of destroying the immune system with harsh chemicals, we need to be working with the body.” Eric B. Robins, MD, Urologist, Los Angeles

As we are becoming increasingly aware of how the mind and body are interconnected, new possibilities for healing “dis-ease” and longstanding human problems are being discovered. Recognizing how the mind-body connection affects cancer treatment, patients can relieve the trauma of cancer through Time Line Therapy®.

HEALING CANCER WITH NLP AND TIME LINE THERAPY®

No claim is made by the author of this article as to the inherent healing powers of Time Line Therapy® Techniques, in fact, quite to the contrary, the author believes that all healing power lies within us and that healing takes place when the client establishes good communication with his unconscious mind. Nothing described here is designed to replace good Medical treatment in the case of disease.

Exciting News: In the past 5 years, there is exciting news in the field of dis-ease (and I do misspell the word on purpose). Old concepts on the nature of consciousness, and on the nature of the body are changing. We have been using many of these concepts in Time Line Therapy® for some time now, and many of these concepts are new. Let me warn you in advance, that this article may change your viewpoint about your mind and your body. It has a potential to be controversial. This change in the structure of our belief systems is necessary to affect a change in the way we assist people in healing themselves and others.

Some of the more exciting conceptual work on the healing process has been done by a medical doctor in Massachusetts. Deepak Chopra is one of the new breed of health care practitioners who is speaking out, and in a way that will change how we view the mind and the body. Chopra’s credentials are impressive. He is an endocrinologist, and former chief of staff of the New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Chopra calls himself a quantum biologist, which means the application of quantum physics to biology. He says that the body is a quantum mechanical device, and that it is subject to the laws of quantum physics and not Newtonian physics. If you aren’t aware of the meaning of these terms yet, please take every means to find out.

In Quantum Healing, 1986, Chopra gave us a new paradigm for how the body handles its own rejuvenation processes. How often does the body renew itself? Older wisdom had it pegged at around seven years. Chopra has revised that estimate downward to roughly one year (approximately 98% totally renewed). Based on the estimates of quantum biology, you have a brand new stomach lining every 4 days, new skin every 30 days, a new liver in 6 weeks, even the skeleton is replaced every three months. These concepts are vital as we structure the metaphors for treatment while we work with our clients in the healing process.

Another of the more important notions of quantum biology is that consciousness is not localized to any one place. Is there any evidence for this?

Neuropeptides

Twenty years ago a group of scientists discovered in the brain, a set of chemicals known as neuropeptides. Neuro because they are found in the brain, and peptides because they are proteinlike molecules. So every time you have a thought or a feeling, a desire, an instinct, or a drive, each of these affects our nervous system by means of specific messenger molecules called neuropeptides.

There are receptors to these neuropeptides not only in brain cells but also in cells of the immune system. So when the scientists began looking at the various immune system cells that protect us from cancer and infection (t-cells, for example), they found that there were receptors to these same neuropeptides in those cells. In fact, the word neuropeptide became obsolete, because they’re not confined to the brain. They are floating around in the bloodstream and going to all our different organs. Since there are receptors to these neuropeptides in cells in the immune system, then it becomes obvious that, as Chopra says, “The immune system is constantly eavesdropping on our internal dialog.” In NLP we would add the following comment, “The immune system is constantly responding to the pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes, and the internal dialog that we hold in our mind.”

The Unconscious Mind

Since the unconscious mind (also known as the “body mind”) is the controlling intelligence in the body, it is also the connection between the mind and the immune system. One of the major theories of Time Line Therapy®, NLP, and Hypnosis is that the unconscious mind can communicate with any part of the body at any time it so desires, and can, in this way, stimulate the healing process. It seems that there is, in fact, neurological evidence for this idea.

Every thought, every emotion, every desire, every internal representation you have is monitored, overheard, viewed. Your immune system is watching, listening, feeling! It has been shown that grieving people have grieving immune cells. If the grieving goes on for a prolonged period of time, then the immune system has also the self-talk of, “Leave me alone, I don’t want to be bothered.” Such people are, according to Chopra, susceptible to cancer and other infectious diseases.

That is why it’s so important to understand that negative emotions which are trapped in the body are not conducive to health, and why we release all of a person’s negative emotions when we do healing processes in Time Line Therapy® techniques.

The Significant Emotional Experience

Another major theory of our Time Line Therapy® training is that many mental and physical dis- eases are preceded by a significant emotional experience (SEE) of a negative nature which may appear in the client’s recent past, or even further in the past, such as during childhood. If negative, and depending on the intensity, the SEE has the potential to create or be the source of some emotional, mental or even physical dis-ease occurring in the body.

Let’s define some terms so that we are speaking the same language: (I borrow the notion of an SEE from the sociologist Dr. Morris Massey, in the book The People Puzzle.) First event means the very first time that an experience happens, or the root cause of a first event occurring (this is also called root cause). Significant emotional experience is any major, fully associated, highly charged emotional event wherever it occurs. Emotional chain is the process that the unconscious mind uses to connect experiences of a similar nature. (The term used in Time Line Therapy® and The Basis of Personality [1988, Tad James, M.S., Ph.D.] is gestalt which means a collection of memories around a certain subject.)

The potential of a negative SEE to create dis-ease is based on the trapped emotions, which remain in the memory because they are stored in the body. The work of Dr. Paul Goodwin, a neural physicist at Alaska Pacific University, implies that the trapped emotions in the body have the possibility of creating functional (software, non-physical) boundaries, which can impede the flow of nerve information through the neural network pathways.

Testing Memories for Negative Emotions

You can tell if there are still any negative emotions in one of your past memories by going back to that memory, and remembering what happened looking through your own eyes. (Warning: Do not try this with memories, which contain trauma or phobia.) If, as you remember the memory, you feel any negative emotions in your body, then there is a negative emotional content to the memory, and there is trapped emotion in your body. The trapped negative emotion, if you feel it, is the basis for dis-ease.

Getting Rid of the Negative Emotions

Now, other than dis-ease, why get rid of negative emotions which are trapped in one’s body? Well, for example, imagine a salesperson, (s)he has a dream, (s)he’s well trained, knows how to sell, and (s)he wants to make more money. But every time (s)he goes to close the sale, fear comes up. That salesperson is not going to do his or her best. Certainly the closing ratio will not be as high as it could be without the fear.

Now imagine that same salesperson without the fear. Which one do you thing will do better? Of course, the second one.

Or in a relationship, perhaps you once got hurt, and so you said, “I’m never going to let that happen to me again.” So every time you get to a certain point in the relationship you begin to feel those old negative feelings, and so you end the relationship. More importantly, each relationship ends in exactly the same way each time. You may not even remember the source of the negative feelings, but at a certain point there they are, and the relationship ends.Now imagine being without those negative emotions, do you think that it would improve the relationship? Of course.

Obviously, the creation of dis-ease requires more trapped negative emotions than those in the situations we’ve just discussed. However, the process is the same–the unconscious mind represses (to whatever extent it needs to) memories with unresolved negative emotions. It does this for the “sanity” of the conscious mind. Since the unconscious mind does repress the memories with the negative emotions in them, the emotions get stuck in the body and aren’t released. Time Line Therapy® has the potential of releasing the trapped emotion in memories in a very short period of time. My experience with the now thousands of people of all walks of life is that it is possible to release all of a person’s negative emotions from past memories in as little as five hours. That release of negative emotions has a profound effect on the person.Dr Hammer: Not only does the release of negative emotions clear up physical health, it also has the potential to improve the mental and emotional health of the person.

This paradigm is no longer just a theory. What verified the basic theory of Time Line Therapy® is a result of the research of a Medical Doctor named Hammer, who is currently practicing in Germany.

Several years ago while practicing in Rome, Italy, Dr. Hammer’s son, age 18 was shot and killed. Several years later, Dr. Hammer developed testicular cancer. He was operated on, and he survived. Then, having moved to Bavaria, he began to research whether or not a severe emotional trauma precedes all cancer. Since that time, Dr. Hammer has researched over 10,000 cases of cancer.

Starts with a Severe Trauma

Dr. Hammer flatly states that all cancer starts with a severe psychological conflict that throws you into shock. He says, “You isolate yourself, and do not share your emotions with others. You are upset and do not share with others–you’re obsessed about the conflict. This conflict changes your life completely–you will never be the same.” (This is a description of a major Significant Emotional Experience, or SEE.) This type of SEE, according to Hammer, usually occurs on the average of one to three years prior to the onset of the first symptoms of cancer.

Trapped Emotions

When the SEE occurs, the emotions associated with the SEE are trapped in a certain spot in the brain, and according to Hammer, a “short circuit” occurs. (He says that the physiological process is close to, or like a stroke.) In his work (originally available in German), Hammer has related the spot in the brain, with the tumor location in the body, with the type of trauma, which caused it.
When a major SEE like this occurs, according to Hammer, there is a trapped emotion in the brain, the brain suffers something like a mild stroke and starts sending wrong information to a certain part of the body, and then a cancer growth starts in that area. The nature of the SEE determines the area of the brain, and the type of cancer. The rate of growth is also dependent on the SEE. As soon as the SEE is released, Hammer says, there is an immediate edema that occurs in the area where the trapped emotions were. This edema can be seen on a CT-Scan! Once the edema occurs, the cancer growth stops, and healing begins. A skilled MD can see the edema on the CT-Scan, and know about the area of the brain and, therefore, the type of cancer. Often, we forget about our conflicts and SEE’s, so we aren’t sure of the source. Areas where there were old, trapped emotions will often show up on the CT-Scan as “old stroke” areas.

This is important to understand in the treatment of cancer, because the fact is, Hammer says, that the immune system does not have to fight cancer cells. The immune system does not even have to recognize cancer cells because the problem is in the brain–the answer is to heal the brain. This happens in the resolution of the initial conflict or SEE. Hammer feels that cutting, burning and/or poisoning the tumor is not the answer. If a tumor affects the proper functioning of an organ then the tumor will have to be cut off, but not the rest of the organ. This means that only a total of 2-3% of the cancer will have to be cut out.

From Recent Trauma

Hammer says that it is not the childhood trauma that causes the cancer; it is a more recent trauma. It is also important to understand that it is the first event that allows the more recent SEE to create a lesion in the brain. Hammer’s procedure is to release the SEE using what seems to be traditional psychological methods. It seems that Hammer does not have a way, or is not interested in the release of the original root cause or the first event. Hammer’s experience is, therefore, that a recurrence of an event similar to the SEE, which caused the cancer brought a recurrence of the cancer. Hammer has observed in his research that even an imagined SEE is sufficient to bring back a relapse of the cancer symptoms. Our experience is that the recurrence of the cancer can be prevented if the first event is also released, and cleared.

It is important to note that, according to Hammer, even an imagined conflict/SEE can be enough to start or restart the cancer symptoms, even if it seems small or inconsequential to you. For example, Hammer notes a woman who had cervical cancer got it by re-reading her dead husband’s love letters, and feeling as though in his death he was refusing to have intercourse with her. The SEE can be as simple as the running away of a pet, the stock market going down, losing a job, or even listening to a neighbor gossip. Whether or not any of these actually make a difference in your physiology depends on your own personal history, and whether there is an emotional chain present for the SEE to connect to.

According to Hammer, carcinogens do not play a major role in the creation of cancer. This idea will, I’m certain, raise some eyebrows in certain committed health food types but, Hammer raises some disturbing questions. Why, for example, do women smokers have a significantly lower rate of bronchial and lung cancer than do men smokers? Hammer says that women smokers have fewer territorial conflicts (the type of SEE that causes bronchial cancer) than do men, and so the percentage of that type cancer in women is lower. Of course, as women proceed more and more into their rightful place of equality in the workplace, we can expect the statistics to move more into equality too. So there is a price for success!

Now what about situations where the cancer has been found to spread (metastasize) in the body to other areas of the body? The commonly accepted theory in medicine right now, is that a cancerous cell splits off from the main cancer and travels through the blood stream to other areas of the body, where new cancer growth then starts. Hammer flatly rejects this idea. First of all, he says it has not been possible for researchers to cause cancer cells to metastasize in any laboratory experiment. Rather, he says that what really happens is that the patient goes to visit the medical doctor, and the doctor gets suspicious. So the doctor orders extensive testing. The report says, “Cancer.” And it sounds so final! The patient is terrified, knowing life will never be the same, creating a new SEE. In this case the fear causes lymph cancer, and the fear of death will start lung cancer (two of the major places to where cancer is “known” to metastasize). Now the well meaning medical doctor says, “It is all over the body.” And the body responds.

Another scenario, the patient undergoes surgery, and feels a lack of self worth. If the reproductive system is operated on, the patient will feel like less of a man or woman, and may say “I’ll never function the same way again,” or, “Now I’m worthless.” Another SEE, another cancer. The process is not the spreading of cancer, it is the spreading of SEE’s.

The Process of Cancer

Now how do you use this information to assist the healing process using Time Line Therapy® Techniques? It seems that there are two main stages in the process of cancer:
1. The Dis-ease Phase: SEE occurs, the client has no strategy for dealing with the trauma, the emotion is trapped in an area of the brain, the brain begins to send wrong signals to the area of the body, and a tumor growth occurs in a corresponding area of the body. During this phase, the patient feels uncomfortable, tense, sometimes sleepless, and has cold hands and feet. This indicates activity of the sympathetic nervous system. (The sympathetic nervous system is the system that we use in thinking, planning, action, etc.) A healthy person can switch from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system at will. During the Dis-ease Phase the client is in the sympathetic system only.

2. The Healing Phase: The SEE is released, conflict is resolved, the trapped emotion in the brain is released, an edema in the area of the brain occurs, and the tumor stops growing. In this phase the client immediately switches to the parasympathetic system. The client will feel relaxed, tired, will need more sleep and be more hungry.

My experience with clients leads me to say that you can tell which phase a client is in. “Marlene” had several bouts with cancer before she came to me. (In fact the Medical Doctor who referred her to me said that he had little hope for her.) The first session, Marlene could barely walk into the room. Marlene looked gray; she could not hold her head upright for more than a minute or two; and she spoke so softly that I had to strain to hear her.

The first assault of this dis-ease was in August 1984 with breast cancer. The first tip-off was a lump in the right breast in 1983. Between 1984 and 1990, she had cancer in the mid-back, hip, right shoulder, back, pelvic area, left shoulder, neck, and liver. She had surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy in the process of treating all these cancers. Of course, by the time I met her she was very weak, and as I mentioned, she looked gray.
In taking her history, I found that she was suffering or had suffered all her life from a number of negative emotions including depression, sadness, fear, guilt, anger, hate, anxiety, hurt feeling, pain, low self esteem, and jealousy. So I asked her what had happened one to three years prior to the lump in 1983. She gasped and said that in 1980, she and her husband had first met, and had gotten together. In 1981, in spite of a number of fears and misgivings, and even though he was extremely aggressive, she had married the man. He had then systematically cut her off from all her friends and family.
During the first intervention, we released all of her negative emotions including depression, sadness, fear, guilt, anger, hate, anxiety, hurt feeling, pain, low self-esteem, and jealousy. In addition, we cleared her decision to have the lump in the right breast, and any subsequent choices for less than perfect health.

During the intervention her hands became hot. She felt tired, sleepy, and extremely hungry. That night she had the best night’s sleep she had in five years. During the therapy, she shifted over from the Dis-ease Phase to the Healing Phase. The next day she came in alert, smiling, and all trace of the gray had disappeared.

Sometimes the Healing Phase can be uncomfortable. A client called me the day after a Time Line Therapy® session, and said, “My whole body is uncomfortable, it aches–especially my head.” I told him to get a deep tissue massage, and enjoy a hot tub, and to be happy because the reaction of the body was telling him that we were releasing some major “stuff” (a technical term). According to Hammer, if the tumor has been growing for more than 9 months it is possible that the client will not be totally comfortable during the Healing Phase. In this case the resolution of the Dis-ease Phase may produce other dis-comfort which could include swelling of the brain, edema, heart arrhythmia or other temporary organ dysfunction, headache, migraine, or even mild epilepsy in some cases.

During the Healing Phase, the client needs to be comfortable. Schedule the Healing Phase to have a minimum of stress on the client. While healing, get away from it all, take a nap each time you yawn, exercise daily, and eat and drink moderately. Above all, no responsibilities except healing.

There is hope–we have had some excellent results in assisting clients to relieve their symptoms. Of course, anyone with a life threatening dis-ease should see a Medical Doctor first before seeking a non-traditional route like Time Line Therapy® techniques. (Time Line Therapy®, NLP and Hypnosis are not a replacement for Medical treatment.) Even so, we have had results that now prove the theories we have been using in the processes of healing various symptoms that produce the illusion of dis-ease.

New Hope

There is hope–the University of Calgary, Department of Medicine has investigated, and now uses Time Line Therapy® and the basis of Personality as a text book in one of its oncology (cancer) treatment classes for training medical doctors.

There is hope–several psychology departments including St. Joseph’s College in Calumet, Michigan are teaching Time Line Therapy® in the college to psychology students.

There is hope! Because there are some enlightened doctors in the world who are willing to stop doing what doesn’t work, and start looking for what does produce results. Then they use what they have learned to make changes that will affect the planet (and in case you hadn’t noticed that’s what my life is about). I think that attitude is wonderful wherever I find it, in our own community and especially in the medical and psychological communities, and I salute it.

Further, I am sincerely honored that some enlightened members of the medical and psychological community are willing to continue to learn and to look to Time Line Therapy® techniques to provide other alternatives for healing.

No claim is made by the author of this article as to the inherent healing powers of Time Line Therapy Techniques, in fact, quite to the contrary, the author believes that all healing power lies within us, and that healing takes place when the client establishes good communication with his unconscious mind. Nothing described here is designed to replace good Medical treatment in the case of disease.