Turner’s definition of spontaneous remission would seem to exclude those cases which are not statistically unexpected, for instance the many cases of small tumors found during mammography that do not grow. Yet unlike the medical field’s definition of spontaneous regression noted above she also includes cases where the patient had undergone biomedical treatment or was undergoing it. This would have the effect of enlarging the number of remission cases in her sample as well as including some where the cause of remission may be at least partly due to standard cancer treatment. So these two terms are not apples to apples. But both are rare.

Kelly Turner: Let’s hope. For me it’s another way to tell the radical remission story. Some people read books about cancer. Other people won’t touch that, but they’ll go see a movie with their favorite actors in it, and if all they know is that it’s about healing, then maybe they’ll go see it, and then they’ll learn about this phenomenon of radical remission. It’s really just about trying to tell the radical remission story in a different way. Theresa Maschke joined the Fight CRC team in May 2021 as a Content Writer, binding her love of writing and editing with her experience as her husband’s (a stage III survivor) caregiver. Theresa lives in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, with her husband, Joe; three kids, Elizabeth, Joey, and Caroline; and newest addition, her puppy named Buddy! So, many of them ignored that voice at first and for the people that I’ve studied, ignoring that voice was a mistake, in the sense that by ignoring it they did not get to full healing. The people that I’ve studied, again, I’ll just qualify this by saying, “the people that I’ve studied in-depth.” I can’t speak for anyone else, but for the people that I’ve studied, when they started listening to that voice, as opposed to ignoring it, that is when their healing started turning around and being more complete.But, in my opinion, if someone had stage four cancer and they’re well now, then we need to know about them. If they used chemo, plus these nine factors, and that’s what allowed them to endure the chemo and allow it to do its job, that’s something for oncologists to learn. People will say, “I wasn’t able to do anything for those two days. I couldn’t think straight.” Well, of course not, because your frontal cortex was shut down. I’m not the only one who was wildly curious about whether people experiencing cures from “incurable” illnesses were doing something to improve their chances of cure. Kelly A. Turner, PhD studies people who have experienced what she calls “radical remissions.” She prefers the term “radical remission” because she says there’s nothing “spontaneous” about these remarkable cures.

Her account cites many examples of people who pursued non-standard therapies and beat cancer. One of the most moving is the case of Shin Terayama, a kidney cancer patient who was released to go home because there was no possibility of remission. He claims to have cured himself through a combination of breath work, a simplified diet, fasting, purified water, and sending love to his cancerous tumors. He was cancer free for over 25 years. In another example, Nancy’s doctor recommended a standard therapy of full mastectomy, radiation and tamoxifen. She chose instead a regime of diet, exercise, herbs, emotional spiritual and energy treatments. She was still cancer-free 18 years later. NY Times bestselling author Kelly Turner, Ph.D., a researcher who specializes in integrative oncology and filmmaker, gives the reader the results of her research on over 1,000 cases of Radical Remission—people who have defied a serious or even terminal cancer diagnosis with a complete reversal of the disease. The results of this study, which focused on seventy-five factors, include astounding insights of the 9 key healing factors that Dr. Turner found among nearly every Radical Remission survivor she has studied and an explanation of how the reader can put these practices to work in his or her own life. Marianne Cirone: And what do we do about dealing with the resistance to our intuitions? I wonder if women doubt their instincts more, too.This book was mentioned by a friend who was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer. Facing a bleak prognosis, she refused to resign herself to fate and has committed herself to defying the odds. This is not the type of book I usually read, however, when faced with the possibility of imminent death, I can understand the desire to grasp at all possible sources of hope, and I was intrigued. So what were the 9 key factors that these patients with radical remissions employed? Dr. Turner goes into much more detail about these 9 key factors in the book. In fact, each factor has its own chapter, as well as stories of how patients used these factors to participate actively in their healing journey. But here are the nine overlapping factors her research uncovered. The following is a conversation that I was honored to have with Dr. Turner in the summer of 2017. Interview with Radical Remission author, Dr. Kelly Turner Turner devotes a chapter to each of the nine keys, which she calls the most “common healing factors” among Radical Remission survivors. While all nine of the key ideas seem to be common sense, somehow when all nine are practiced together, the outcomes are incredible. As in “unbelievable,” but they happen as evidenced chapter after chapter of Radical Remission.