Atlas›Domain XII · Complementary, energy & biofield›Guide 157
Guide XII-157

Issels' whole-body therapy

Josef Issels1951Germany
A 29 · L 59 · M 128 interventions in the Trinity explorer
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[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

Historical account. Not a treatment for cancer or any other disease; there is no legitimate way for a psychotherapist to deliver, sell or recommend it.

1. What it was

Version followed: Josef Issels' "Ganzheitstherapie" (whole-body therapy, also called Issels combination therapy) as practised at the Ringberg-Klinik, Rottach-Egern, Bavaria, from 1951 into the 1970s, as described by the founder's own book, a 1971 Dutch anti-quackery society report, a 1971 UK government report and contemporary press; with a short account of the later Issels-branded clinics in Mexico (and, per one forum report, California). [source: Square One excerpt; Kwakzalverij 1971; DHSS catalogue; Spectator 1975]

  • Who and where. Josef Issels (1907–1998), a German physician, opened a clinic for patients with cancer in Bavaria in 1951; his publisher describes it as the first European hospital for "incurable" cancer patients. [source: Square One excerpt] The Ringberg-Klinik was at Rottach-Egern on the Tegernsee; a German newspaper advertisement in 1971 called it the first German specialist clinic for internal cancer therapy, founded 1951. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971] Reported later history: closed after his 1961 conviction (see section 2), reopened 1965, closed for good 1975; he then practised in Bad Wiessee (to 1985) and moved to the USA, and the concept is promoted by an Issels Foundation, with treatment given in Mexico for legal reasons. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
  • Stated rationale. Issels taught that cancer is a generalised disease of the whole body from the outset and that the tumour is a late symptom of it, not its cause; he contrasted this with "localist" medicine. Treatment therefore had two parts: a specific treatment against the tumour and a general treatment to restore the body's own defences. He presented surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy as tools inside this whole-body framework. [source: Square One excerpt] A core idea was that chronic "foci" (Herde) of inflammation or infection, especially in teeth and tonsils, weakened the defences and had to be cleared (Herdsanierung). [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; uncertain: secondary, unverified for the German detail]
  • How it was sold. In his book Issels claimed "the most remarkable, independently verified cure rate in medical history", cited experience with over 8,000 patients, and offered whole-body therapy as a causal treatment for every malignancy, including advanced and recurrent cancer. [source: Square One excerpt] A 17% cure rate for advanced cases was claimed in 1971 [source: Kwakzalverij 1971], and an 87% five-year relapse-free figure for 370 patients (all previously treated with surgery or radiotherapy, no control group) was published in 1970 in a journal he used to promote the method. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; uncertain: secondary] The 1971 newspaper advertisement offered the clinic for aftercare after surgery or radiotherapy, for inoperable cancer, and as "preventive" treatment for people at risk. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971]
  • Publicity and referral. A BBC film, Go Climb a Mountain, shown in November 1970, detailed the unusual treatments and was noncommittal on cure rates; it caused public concern that British patients were being denied valuable expertise. A British Olympic athlete became a patient in 1970 and died of cancer in Munich in December 1970; about £15,000 was raised in England, most of it intended for the clinic. [source: Spectator 1975; Kwakzalverij 1971] A world-famous musician was later treated at an Issels clinic in Bavaria (1980–1981) and died on the journey home. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; uncertain: secondary]
  • Official responses. The UK Department of Health and Social Security sent a team of cancer specialists, and HMSO published A report on the treatment of cancer at the Ringberg-Clinic, Rottach Egern, Bavaria (1971). [source: DHSS catalogue; Spectator 1975] The American Cancer Society listed Issels combination therapy among "unproven methods of cancer management" in 1972 and considers it ineffective against cancer. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
  • Current form. Later Issels-branded centres in Tijuana, Mexico (and, per a patient forum, Santa Barbara, California) advertise "immunobiological" or "immuno-oncology" protocols described as non-toxic: autologous dendritic-cell vaccines, Coley's mixed bacterial vaccine, activated NK and LAK cells, cytokines, photopheresis, stem-cell procedures and systemic hyperthermia, with claims of long-term remission in advanced cancers that failed conventional therapy. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; cholangiocarcinoma.org forum; uncertain: secondary] A 2005 cost of about US$65,000 is reported. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]

2. What was actually done

A typical course at Ringberg, in the order patients met it. Detail is as specific as the sources allow; doses and schedules are omitted.

  1. Selection. Most patients arrived with advanced or recurrent cancer, often after surgery or radiotherapy elsewhere, or had been told nothing more could be done; others came for "aftercare" or "prevention". [source: Square One excerpt; Kwakzalverij 1971] Hope was set by publicity, the founder's cure-rate claims and testimonials. [source: Spectator 1975; Skeptic's Dictionary]
  2. Payment and consent. Foreign patients paid at least two months in advance, in cash or traveller's cheques (10,000 DM in the Dutch report). Aftercare meant a month-long return stay every year at further cost. Families often lodged in a nearby guesthouse at their own expense and sold homes or borrowed to pay. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971] Consent rested on the founder's claims rather than independent outcome data, since there were no controlled results to give. [source: Spectator 1975; synthesis]
  3. Setting. A residential private clinic in a Bavarian lakeside resort, run by the founder, for weeks to months; the BBC filmed inside it in 1970. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971; Spectator 1975]
  4. Clearing "foci" (Herdsanierung). Teeth judged to be foci were extracted; the BBC film showed dental extractions. [source: Spectator 1975] Removal of the tonsils for the same reason is reported. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; uncertain: secondary] Removal of amalgam (metal) fillings was generally advised; later descriptions include removal of teeth containing metal fillings. [uncertain: secondary, unverified] These were surgical procedures carried out for a theory of cancer, not for a dental or ENT indication. [synthesis]
  5. Fever therapy. Fever was deliberately induced by injecting bacterial preparations (reported as a commercial pyrogen and E. coli products; later Coley's mixed bacterial vaccine), and hyperthermia was used. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; uncertain: secondary, unverified for product names]
  6. "Sera", vaccines and proprietary agents. Patients received unexplained "sera" [source: Spectator 1975]; an agent the founder called CA 15 was given free and described to patients as an immunotherapeutic still in clinical trials [source: Kwakzalverij 1971]; other agents with code names were reported. [uncertain: secondary, unverified] One Dutch patient was given about 70 different medicines costing about 2,300 DM; bills listed "blood washing" and "oxygen insufflations", which Dutch doctors who saw them found alarming. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971] Later oxygen-ozone treatment is reported. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary]
  7. Diet and regimen. A special diet, abstinence from tobacco, coffee and alcohol, herbal tea taken in large amounts, rest, fresh air and stress reduction; psychotherapy was part of the programme. [source: Spectator 1975; Skeptic's Dictionary; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary]
  8. Conventional treatment inside the framework. Some patients also received surgery or cytotoxic drugs; the UK team found that some reported "successes" had in fact had chemotherapy from Issels or surgical removal of tumours. [source: Square One excerpt; Skeptic's Dictionary, uncertain: secondary]
  9. Discharge instructions. Leaving patients were told to guard against "geopathic" radiation from underground water streams and mineral deposits: have a dowser position the bed, "de-interfere" sprung mattresses by earthing them, and avoid certain heating systems. They often went home with bags of medicines. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971]
  10. Judging "progress". Records were not kept in a normal form, so results could not be compared with conventionally treated patients. [source: Spectator 1975] Success was asserted through cure-rate figures and testimonials; patients who died could not give testimonials. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary]
  11. Non-response and refusal of surgery. Deterioration was treated by more of the regimen or by return visits. [synthesis from Kwakzalverij 1971 aftercare reports] In 1961 the Landgericht München II convicted Issels of negligent homicide (fahrlässige Tötung) in three cases and acquitted him of the remaining charges; about two years later he was acquitted of all negligent-homicide charges on appeal. [source: Bayerisches Ärzteblatt 7-8/2011 and 9/2011, citing its own 1961 and 1965 reports] Secondary accounts describe the three deaths as patients who did not have surgery that might have saved them, and the first-instance sentence as suspended. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
  12. Named variants. (a) Ringberg Ganzheitstherapie, 1951–1975; (b) Bad Wiessee practice after 1975 [uncertain: secondary]; (c) Issels "immuno-oncology" clinics in Mexico, described in section 1; (d) consumer descriptions adding chelation, enzymes, amygdalin and high-dose vitamin C. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]

3. How it caused harm

  • Loss of effective treatment. The central harm was patients with treatable disease forgoing or delaying surgery; three deaths were the subject of the 1961 negligent-homicide conviction, later overturned on appeal. [source: Bayerisches Ärzteblatt 2011; the link to forgone surgery: uncertain: secondary, unverified] The whole-body framing ("the tumour is only a symptom") gives patients a reason to see local treatment as secondary. [source: Square One excerpt; synthesis]
  • False hope from unsupported outcome claims. The UK team found no unambiguous evidence of benefit. [source: Spectator 1975] A secondary account of its report states that none of 121 patients seen showed complete regression, and that of 48 cases offered as successes many had no evidence of disease when they started, had received cytotoxic drugs or surgery, or probably never had cancer, with radiation scarring mistaken for tumour in others. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; uncertain: secondary] Patients and referrers acted on cure rates that rested on uncontrolled, self-reported data. [synthesis]
  • Financial harm. Cash in advance, scores of medicines per patient, annual paid aftercare, lodging costs, families selling homes or going into debt, public fundraising. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971] A later UK news report described a family remortgaging their home to send a child to an Issels clinic. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
  • Physical burden. Dental extractions and tonsillectomy without a medical indication, repeated induced fevers, injections of unlicensed or investigational agents and large numbers of medicines were imposed on people already frail with advanced cancer. [source: Spectator 1975; Kwakzalverij 1971] The cited sources give no systematic injury series; the specific complications of these procedures in frail patients are clinical inference. [synthesis]
  • Deaths away from support. Dutch patients died within days or weeks of returning home, one after carrying home medicines from the clinic; a British athlete treated at Ringberg died in Munich. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971]
  • Psychological harm. Blame placed on teeth, environment and "earth rays" led one patient to move house because of "dirty air" and earth radiation before dying weeks after returning. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971] Likely sequelae for survivors and relatives: guilt, regret, anger at the clinic or at the family member who chose it, and complicated grief. [synthesis]
  • Who was most at risk. People with advanced or recurrent cancer told nothing more could be done; foreign patients travelling far from their own doctors; families who fundraised or borrowed; children taken by parents; and patients drawn by celebrity testimonials and television. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971; Spectator 1975; synthesis]

4. Recognising it today

Features and phrases. [source: Square One excerpt; Skeptic's Dictionary; cholangiocarcinoma.org forum; synthesis for grouping]

  • "Cancer is a whole-body (systemic) disease; the tumour is only a symptom"; "we treat the cause, not the symptom"; "restore the body's own defences".
  • "Non-toxic" immunotherapy packages sold for cash outside registered trials: dendritic-cell or "personalised" vaccines, Coley's toxins or "mixed bacterial vaccine", NK/LAK cell infusions, cytokines, systemic or whole-body hyperthermia, ozone or oxygen treatments.
  • "Complete long-term remission of advanced cancers that failed conventional therapy"; cure-rate percentages from the clinic's own uncontrolled series; celebrity and patient testimonials.
  • Focal-infection reasoning applied to cancer: extraction of root-filled or "dead" teeth, amalgam removal or tonsillectomy presented as part of cancer treatment (also seen in some "biological dentistry" marketing). [synthesis]
  • Geopathic stress, "earth rays", dowsing for bed position. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971]
  • Practical pattern: residential stays abroad (often Tijuana), payment up front, annual "maintenance" returns, bags of supplements to take home, crowdfunding pages, minimal records shared with the home oncologist. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971; synthesis]

Rebrandings. "Issels Immuno-Oncology", "integrative immunotherapy", "immunobiological therapy", "whole-body therapy", "biological medicine", "holistic oncology". The use of real terms (dendritic cells, NK cells, hyperthermia) does not mean the product is the licensed or trial version. [source: Skeptic's Dictionary; synthesis]

Red flags in a colleague's or service's practice. [synthesis]

  • Referring clients to, endorsing, fundraising for or receiving commission from such clinics.
  • Framing the client's cancer as caused by suppressed emotion, teeth or environment in ways that imply blame or that therapy, diet or detox can replace oncology.
  • Discouraging contact with the oncologist, or treating questions about evidence as "negativity".
  • Running psychotherapy groups that double as recruitment for a clinic or product.

How legitimate care differs. [synthesis] Licensed immunotherapies and cell therapies are given by oncology teams under regulatory approval or within registered clinical trials, with published protocols, informed consent naming risks and alternatives, no charge to trial participants for the investigational product in most systems, and records shared with the patient's doctors. Integrative oncology (see 172) uses complementary methods for symptoms and wellbeing alongside standard treatment, never instead of it. Psycho-oncology addresses coping and meaning without claiming to alter the tumour. Dental or ENT surgery is done for a dental or ENT reason.

5. What to do instead and how to help those harmed

Recommended alternatives by name. Standard oncology care from the client's treating team; a second opinion at another cancer centre; registered clinical trials found with the oncologist; specialist palliative care early when cure is unlikely; psycho-oncology and cancer-specific psychological therapies; integrative oncology services that work alongside the team (172). [synthesis]

The psychotherapist never performs, sells, prescribes or recommends Issels or similar regimens, never advises on medicines, and does not argue the client out of their values. The work below is the therapist's own. [synthesis throughout this section unless a source is given]

5.1 Asking without judgement and exploring meaning

  • Purpose: learn early whether the client or family is considering, using or recovering from an alternative cancer clinic, and what it means to them.
  • Steps: ask routinely about all treatments, including clinics abroad and supplements; record the answer; explore what draws them (control, hope, distrust after a bad experience, a story they saw, family pressure, faith, fear of side effects); summarise their explanatory model back without correcting it yet.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Many people look at other options when they get news like this. What have you been looking into?" / "What is it about this clinic that feels hopeful to you?"
  • Watch for: secrecy from the oncologist, all-or-nothing thinking, travel already booked, emotional reasoning driven by terror of chemotherapy. Working: the client talks openly and links their choice to values you can name together.

5.2 Autonomy-respecting decision support

  • Purpose: help an adult with capacity make an informed, values-based decision without coercion.
  • Steps: separate the client's goals (time, comfort, being at home, fighting, family) from the means; help them prepare written questions for the clinic and for their oncologist (what outcomes, measured how, compared with what; total costs including aftercare and travel; what happens if they become ill abroad; whether records will be shared); explore the cost of delay to any standard treatment by asking the oncologist with consent; respect the decision once informed, and keep the door open.
  • Example language (illustrative): "It's your decision. My job is to help you make it with the full picture. What would you need to know to feel sure?" / "If the clinic's figures were right, how would you expect them to show it?"
  • Watch for: your own urge to persuade, which can harden the choice; pressure from a relative; signs that capacity is affected (delirium, brain metastases, severe depression), which need medical assessment. Working: the client can state the trade-offs in their own words.

5.3 Coordinating with oncology and palliative teams

  • Purpose: keep the client connected to medical care whatever they choose.
  • Steps: with consent, tell the oncologist or GP that the client is considering or receiving treatment abroad; encourage the client to bring the clinic's list of agents to their doctor or pharmacist for interaction and safety review; support early palliative-care referral; plan with the client how they will get urgent care if they deteriorate abroad or on return.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it be all right if I let Dr X know you're weighing this up, so they can keep looking after you whatever you decide?"
  • Watch for: the client dropping off oncology follow-up, fear of being judged by the team, abrupt symptom change after injections or fevers (route to medical care at once). Working: the medical team knows, and the client still attends.

5.4 Family conflict

  • Purpose: reduce conflict when relatives disagree about an alternative clinic.
  • Steps: meet the family with the client's consent; let each person name their fear and hope; keep the client's voice central; agree what the family can do together (accompany, keep the oncologist informed, cap spending) whatever the decision.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You all want the same thing, more time and less suffering. You disagree about how. Can we start from what you agree on?"
  • Watch for: coercion in either direction, scapegoating, children being enlisted in fundraising. Working: the family can disagree without cutting contact.

5.5 Grief and regret after choosing alternatives

  • Purpose: help survivors, bereaved relatives and patients who stopped or delayed treatment live with what happened.
  • Steps: assess for complicated grief, depression, trauma symptoms and suicidality using standard tools; name the context in which the choice was made (hope, publicity, persuasive claims); separate responsibility from blame; work with guilt and counterfactual rumination using established grief and trauma therapies; address anger at the clinic, at doctors or within the family.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You made that choice with what you knew and hoped for then. Can we look at what you were trying to protect?"
  • Watch for: self-punishment, anger turning into estrangement, shame stopping the client from seeking care for new symptoms. Working: the client can tell the story with less self-blame and re-engage with care.

5.6 Financial harm

  • Purpose: address debt, lost homes and fundraising fallout, which historically were common. [source: Kwakzalverij 1971]
  • Steps: ask directly about costs and debts; refer to debt advice and social work; discuss crowdfunding pressure and its public exposure; support the client in requesting itemised bills and records; mention consumer-protection routes (5.8).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Money often becomes a big part of this. Has the cost affected you or your family?"
  • Watch for: repeated payments for "maintenance" visits, pressure to sell a home, elders being financially exploited. Working: the client has a plan and support for the money side.

5.7 Safeguarding

  • Purpose: protect children and adults at risk.
  • Steps: where a child with cancer is being taken out of effective treatment, or given unlicensed injections or invasive procedures, follow local child-safeguarding procedures and discuss with the treating team; involve the child in conversations at their developmental level and seek their assent; for adults lacking capacity or under undue influence, follow adult-safeguarding procedures. Never name or publicise the child.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I need to share this with the team because it's about your child's safety. I'll tell you what I'm doing and why."
  • Watch for: medical-neglect thresholds, travel abroad imminent, a parent's own distress (offer support alongside). Working: the treating team and safeguarding leads are informed and engaged.

5.8 Reporting and professional ethics

  • Purpose: use proper routes when clients are harmed or misled, and keep the therapist's own practice clean.
  • Steps: with the client's consent where possible, report misleading cancer advertising to advertising and consumer regulators (in the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards; in the US, the Federal Trade Commission), unlicensed medicines or adverse reactions to the medicines regulator (MHRA, FDA), and practitioners to their licensing body (e.g. GMC, a state medical board); for clinics in Mexico, the federal health-product regulator (COFEPRIS). [uncertain] Do not sell products or courses to clients; declare any conflict of interest; document discussions of alternative treatment, consent to contact doctors, and safeguarding decisions.
  • Example language (illustrative): "If you'd like, I can help you find where to report this. You decide whether we do."
  • Watch for: your own anger at the clinic driving action the client hasn't agreed to; colleagues promoting clinics (raise with them, then with their professional body). Working: the client feels supported, not taken over.

Assessment for clients who went through it. Ask about the procedures they had (dental extractions, tonsillectomy, induced fevers, injections), lasting physical effects (route to medical and dental care), debt, isolation from their medical team, and how the experience shapes trust in current care; screen for grief, depression, trauma symptoms and suicide risk using current standard practice.

Sources

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