"The belief that mind-set and emotional well-being can improve cancer survival time has become something of a truism in the United States. Despite claims that this is a commonsense and consistent belief which stretches back to Galen, mind-body approaches to cancer have varied radically in response to changing social and cultural contexts. This dissertation tracks shifting meanings of this claim and the varying institutional acceptance of it from the rise of psychosomatic medicine in the 1930s and 40s to the embrace of Contemporary and Alternative Therapies (CAM) in the 1990s. Through the 1950s and 60s, claims of a connection between mind, carcinogenesis, and survival were shaped by psychoanalytic theory and case narratives which reinforced a restrictive view of femininity. However, by the 1970s, mind-body medicine reflected newer gender roles and more eclectic beliefs about psychology. Of the cancer patients depicted in these later case narratives, women were often seen as over-reliant on family for personal fulfillment and lacking in opportunities for personal growth. Men with cancer were often depicted as caught within pathological versions of masculinity. Fixed gender roles came to be seen as potentially carcinogenic. Despite the increasingly feminist tone of these case narratives, there were growing disagreements about whether or not mind-body approaches were empowering or blame-ridden which stretched from feminist collectives to medical journals. In order to show these shifts, I analyze debates within medical journals, the shifting claims in popular self-help books, news reports, the notes and drafts of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, the papers of the Office of Technology Assessment, tobacco industry documents, and Norman Cousins' papers. In these sources, it is possible to see the diverse motivations that encouraged people to advocate for mind-body cancer care. Many doctors were motivated by their insecurities about the growing interest in alternative medicine. Feminists adapted these ideas in ways that more closely matched their beliefs and goals. The tobacco industry had a clear financial incentive to find explanations for cancer that did not point to the carcinogens in cigarettes. Mind-body cancer literature is also an exceptionally useful lens for understanding changing ideas about emotional well-being, particularly as they tie to gender. Case narratives distill key beliefs about what it means to be healthy and well-adjusted, making it possible to see how gender roles change over time and what people believe the consequences might be for failing to conform. This literature also helps to show changing assumptions about the responsibility of the individual patient for healing, and changing beliefs about whether or not the natural world is inherently fair, just, or good."--Abstract.
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