Observations placeholder
Grof, Dr Stanislav - The sad case of Renata
Identifier
011065
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Mystic Cosmos - Evgueny Faydysh [edited to improve the English translation]
….. I will examine the following case described by S.Grof .
One of his patients Renata has come to him with a serious psychic disorder. She had the worst form of cancerophobia - a fear of getting cancer. Initially, she had had numerous endoscopy tests for womb cancer, then she had asked doctors to repeat a rather complicated bronchoscopy procedure.
Next, fearing metastasis she started to cut off pieces of her tongue and gums causing dangerous bleeding. All this was accompanied by quite a difficult life, as though she had had some misfortune.
From the time when she was young, her relationships with men had started well, and there had also been romantic affection. But they always ended with attempted rape. Even her own husband had tried to have sex with her when she had refused whilst she was obsessed with the fear of having cancer of the sexual organs.
It became clear that she did not actually have any oncological problems.
During the altered state induced by LSD the history of how her psychological illness was caused, was reconstructed. In early childhood she used to live with her mother and step-father who treated her well. Yet, at the same time the relation with her step-father contained an element of sexuality. Her step-father had often got aroused when she was sitting in his lap.
Once, shortly before Christmas Renata and her step father had stayed home alone. Her step-father had knifed the Christmas goose and had got very excited. He made Renata undress and started to stimulate her sexual organs with his hands, he then forced oral-genital contact. He then threatened her saying that if the girl told her mother he would cut off her lips and tongue. This traumatic experience was ‘displaced’ and completely forgotten by Renata but in fact it has influenced the rest of her life.
It is not difficult to see that all later unfortunate situations in Renata's life were just a repetition of this event
The interesting thing is that her mind has created a myth of developing cancer to justify such unnatural desires, in other words the whole mythology was established to protect her displaced memory and hide the real reasons for her behaviour