Yes — and the science has a name for it. Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is the study of how the mind communicates with the brain, nervous system, and immune system. Holistic therapist and cancer recovery coach Avinoam Lerner explains how unresolved trauma creates chronic stress signals that suppress immune function, and what cancer patients can do about it, at any stage.
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Prefer reading? Get the episode transcript here:
What Does Trauma Have to Do with Cancer?
Avinoam Lerner grew up in Israel during a time of ongoing conflict and war. As a six-year-old, he witnessed a caretaker collapse in grief when her husband didn’t return from the 1973 war — an experience his young mind couldn’t process. That unprocessed overwhelm didn’t disappear. It lodged in the body.
That early experience eventually led him to train as a holistic therapist, complete an internship with terminal cancer patients, and recognize a pattern: the look in their eyes was the same helplessness he’d witnessed decades earlier — the look of someone whose inner resources had run out. That recognition became the foundation of his 25 years of work.
What Is Trauma, Really?
Avinoam defines trauma as the unfinished business of the body. When something overwhelming happens and we have the inner resources to process it, it moves through us. When we don’t — especially as children whose mental and emotional faculties aren’t fully developed — the body stores it. That stored distress doesn’t stay quiet. It continues sending signals through the biological system, signals that research links directly to immune suppression.
How Does the Mind Influence the Immune System?
Through psychoneuroimmunology, a field that has existed since the early 1970s. The science is clear: stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, produced in response to mental and emotional distress, suppress immune function over time. Avinoam explains it this way: cancer cells exist in the body all the time. A healthy immune system continuously eliminates them. When immune function is chronically suppressed, that surveillance breaks down.
The signals that suppress immune function include:
- Fear
- Guilt
- Shame
- Rage
- Chronic, unprocessed stress
And crucially, Avinoam points out that the opposite is equally true: positive signals can restore optimal immune function. The body knows how to heal. The question is whether the environment inside — the mental and emotional environment — is supporting that process or working against it.
Did I Cause My Own Cancer?
No — and Avinoam is emphatic on this point. The idea that someone thinks their cancer into existence is not only scientifically false, it’s harmful. Self-blame and guilt produce more stress, which further suppresses immune function. The patterns operating beneath the surface are subconscious — not conscious choices. Blame is not only inaccurate, it’s counterproductive to healing.
Why Doesn’t Your Oncologist Talk About This?
It’s not their scope of practice. PNI simply isn’t part of standard medical training. That doesn’t make it less real — it means the medical system isn’t equipped to offer it. Avinoam notes that behind closed doors, many oncologists acknowledge these connections but face real constraints around liability and licensure. Medicine treats the physical body; his work addresses the person living in that body. Both are necessary parts of the healing equation.
What Is the Conscious vs. Subconscious Mind — and Why Does It Matter?
Avinoam describes the mind as having two parts:
The conscious mind: logical, rational, the part that analyzes and critiques.
The subconscious mind: the emotional mind that governs bodily functions — breathing, digestion, immune response — and stores everything that has ever happened to us.
The subconscious is where outdated beliefs live — beliefs absorbed in childhood before we had the capacity to evaluate them. He uses the analogy of a bank vault: the conscious mind acts as a security guard, rejecting information that doesn’t match what it already knows. Clinical hypnotherapy bypasses that guard, giving direct access to the vault to locate, review, and revise the patterns that are no longer serving us.
What Is the Mindful Remission Program?
Avinoam works with cancer patients in two formats:
In-person intensive: hypnotherapy-focused, designed to release what he calls “the unheard cry of the mind” from the body — directly addressing trauma and misalignment stored in the subconscious.
Mindful Remission online program: combines cancer coaching with hypnotherapeutic elements, focused on identifying and updating the mental and emotional patterns that suppress immune function.
He works with patients at all stages, including advanced cancer, and offers free initial consultations to ensure fit. His new book, Mindful Remission: The Mental Science of Healing Cancer, puts the full toolkit into readers’ hands.
When Should Someone Start This Work?
At any point in the cancer journey — diagnosis, active treatment, or remission. The subconscious patterns don’t care what stage you’re in. Addressing even 25% of the non-physical component of healing is a meaningful improvement in your odds.
As Avinoam puts it, we’re 50% physical, 50% non-physical. If medicine handles the physical side, there’s an entire other half of the equation waiting to be addressed.
Where to Find Avinoam Lerner
- Book: Mindful Remission: The Mental Science of Healing Cancer
- Free consultations available via his website for those interested in working with him directly
About the Host
I, Greg Cox, have been working in the wellness space for 20+ years and was a chef for 25 years before that, often creating health meals for restaurants and as a private chef. I created the Rebellious Wellness Lifestyle Podcast to empower women to challenge the limitations society places on them as they age.
I believe in science without outsourcing intuition, in prevention over treatment, and in the radical act of remaining visible, engaged, and fully expressed at every age.
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