Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Healing Imagery
To use relaxation plus guided mental imagery as a coping and engagement practice, picturing one’s treatment working and one’s own immune system clearing illness, to reduce distress and restore a sense of participation.
Relax. Picture the illness, then your real treatment working on it, then your immune system clearing up, then yourself well. 15-20 min, up to 3x daily. Strictly a coping adjunct, never a substitute for treatment, never grounds for self-blame.
What it is
O. Carl Simonton, a radiation oncologist, paired standard cancer treatment with relaxation and guided mental imagery in the 1970s. Patients were taught to relax deeply and then picture three things: their cancer in some symbolic form, their medical treatment attacking it, and their own immune system clearing away the remnants and restoring health.
The method became well known through Getting Well Again (1978) and remains controversial. The honest framing is essential and non-negotiable: this is presented here as a coping and engagement practice, a way to reduce distress and feel like an active participant in care.
It is not a treatment, and the claim that such imagery affects tumours or survival is not supported.
The Method
Step 1 — Relax first.
Sit or lie comfortably, close the eyes, and relax progressively for a few minutes, quieting the external world. Imagery is built on a relaxed base. Step 2 — Picture the illness symbolically. Form an image of the cancer or illness in whatever symbolic way it appears to you. Step 3 — Picture the treatment working. Visualise your actual medical treatment (radiation, chemotherapy, medication, surgery) acting on the illness. Step 4 — Picture your immune system clearing up. See your body’s own immune cells as strong, removing what is left and restoring the area to health. Step 5 — Close with wellness and gratitude. End by picturing yourself well and living your life, then return gently. Simonton used roughly 15-20 minutes, up to three times a day.
Source & Lineage
The practice comes from O. Carl Simonton, Stephanie Matthews-Simonton, and James Creighton’s Getting Well Again (1978), and Simonton’s earlier paper “Stress, Psychological Factors, and Cancer.” Simonton always used it alongside conventional oncology, not as a replacement.
The American Cancer Society reviewed the method and stated it found no evidence that it produces objective benefit in treating cancer.
Common refinements
Believing the imagery fights the cancer. It does not. Treat it as relaxation, coping, and engagement only.
- Replacing or delaying treatment. The single most dangerous error. Imagery is built on top of medical care.
- Self-blame for “wrong” imagery or “not believing enough.” This is harmful and must be actively rejected; outcomes are not the patient’s fault.
- Refinement: if combative immune imagery raises anxiety, softer images (cleansing, dissolving, restoring) work just as well for the coping benefit.