David Servan-Schreiber’s approach to living and dying

One the books that people doing our recent HJ course found most useful was Anti-Cancer by David Servan-Schreiber, which summarises evidence-based approaches to lifestyle factors that help reduce the risk of cancer and of cancer recurrence (two different things).

David Servan-Schreiber, a professor of psychiatry at Pittsburgh and author of the very popular earlier book Healing without Freud or Prozac set up one of first centres of integrative medicine in Pittsburgh. He first had a brain tumour in his early thirties. At 49 he was diagnosed with a further aggressive brain tumour (stage 4 glioblastoma) and, in the summer of 2011, Dr Servan-Schreiber died.

In the lead up to his death he wrote the best selling Not the Last Goodbye – Reflections on life, death, healing and cancer. In this last book, the territory covered is very close to the discussions we have on every Healing Journey course. Like him, many of our participants want to give themselves the best chance they can of extending life and avoiding recurrence.

However, recurrences do occur and it is vital not to see those as in any way a failure. In our experience, much healing can take place at any stage of life, and sometimes the likely approach of the end of life stimulates changes that we have been reluctant to make before but which can bring great peace and fulfillment.

Servan-Schreiber spoke of the absolute necessity of finding a balanced lifestyle, leading to a sense of inner peace and calm. He recommended spending time in nature as a good way of finding balance, aligning oneself with the rhythm of the seasons and finding healing within.

An important aspect of living in a fulfilling way is each person finding their own creativity, and “unique melody”. He talks movingly of the changes that were needed in his outlook in order to be able to relate to people in non-hierarchical modes. He came to the “simple yet fundamental idea that life is the expression of relationships within a network; it is not a series of separate goals pursued by distinct individuals”.

The transformation came along with the cancer diagnosis – discovering that he was fragile, mortal, and frightened opened his eyes to the treasures of life and love, and his priorities changed. His medical practice changed in that he began to feel a bond with his patients that was based on respect in place of control and domination. This meant the relationship with his patients could be a two-way process and “I could be enriched by my patients’ humanity”.

Inevitably, when his cancer returned in a more aggressive form, questions arose about the anti-cancer lifestyle guidance and whether it had failed. Servan-Schreiber engages in an admirably honest discussion about this topic. He first acknowledges that there is no infallible way of curing cancer that always works. The methods outlined in Anti-Cancer have been shown to improve people’s condition, make treatments more effective, lessen side effects, and to lead to longer periods of remissions and a lower risk of relapse. He had lived for much longer than average following an aggressive form of cancer, supporting the idea that he had contributed positively to his own health, and having found a much happier way of being.

However he courageously acknowledges as well that, in the excitement and importance of promoting the approaches in his earlier books, which were considered controversial, he had over a long period been doing a great deal of travelling and lost sight of looking after his own fundamental physical needs - of rest, sleep and a regular routine. As he wrote, “I never managed to find that calm and today I regret it. I didn’t manage to remain close to nature and to its and my natural rhythm.” This is an observation that we can all use as a reminder of the need to examine our own lives, which so easily succumb to external and internal pressures if we don’t maintain a regular practice and rhythm that helps to keep us in balance.

In writing Not the Last Goodbye, Servan-Schreiber acknowledged that he didn’t know how long he would live but that, for him, the task of dying well was very important, whenever that would be. For him, this involved saying goodbye to those he held dear, forgiving and asking to be forgiven, getting his affairs in order and “departing with a feeling of peace and connection”. “I’m still fighting for my health”, he wrote. “I’m simply convinced that being at peace with yourself, and accepting your mortality, means you can direct all your energy towards the healing process.”

The Guardian carried the following article after his death – www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/03/david-servan-schreiber-death – in which his brother Emile talks about the last period of his life and the strong sense of connection with his family members that was present to the end. He believed that life after death would involve a realm where love is of primary importance and that he would still be present in a non-physical form to his family members and young children as they grew up.