Afterthoughts About a Classic Lancet Study That Did Not Show Psychotherapy Improves the Survival of Cancer Patients

How Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel aggressively promoted his claim that participation in peer support groups extended the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer after it had been refuted.

August 2023 Introduction

What follows is a refurbishing of a short article originally published on September 2, 2013 on my Quick Thoughts blog. Along with many other of my blog posts, it was subsequently left damaged in my vandalized archive until now. The original article was hastily written, with a sense of crisis. It was followed by two other short articles on September 4 and September 5, 2013 that were also written on a tear [Warning: “on a tear” is an Americanism that might need a translation.]

Special thanks to the unpaid labor of AM Arshee who should not have to work for free.

Even without being given any further context, the original Quick Thoughts post disputing Spiegel’s claim is important in 2023 for teaching and historical purposes.

The Quick Thoughts piece provides a summary of my thinking about a seriously flawed study that gave false hope to breast cancer patients. The claim I considered false was that participating in a support group could extend the lives of woman wit…