Repressiveness: Cause or result of cancer?

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Abstract
Repression is commonly assumed to be a major characteristic of the cancer‐prone personality. Main supporting evidence includes studies showing that cancer patients are low in emotional expression and that repressives have shorter survival. The evidence did not seem compelling, mainly because of contrary findings, overlooking the age factor and the assessment instruments. Thus, we examined whether repression is a response to the threat posed by the cancer diagnosis and whether cancer patients are more repressive, using a new assessment method combining anxiety and defensiveness scores and controlling age. The subjects were 98 women comprising three groups comparable in demographic characteristics: (a) breast biopsy showed they were healthy (n= 40), (b) biopsy showed they had breast cancer (n= 32), and (c) underwent surgery unrelated to cancer (n= 26). Only post‐surgery groups a and b knew the diagnosis. Questionnaires of information and repression were administered to all women pre‐ and post‐surgery. Before surgery, the groups did not differ in repression, anxiety and defensiveness. Post‐surgery, there were no differences in anxiety but MANOVA andX2analyses showed that, in the malignancy group, defensiveness and the number of repressors increased more than in the other groups. The results indicate that repression could be a response to the threat posed by the cancer diagnosis and a means for keeping anxiety at a tolerable level rather than a personality trait of cancer patients.