Due to my experience as a counsellor at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center—the nation’s top hospital for cancer care—I have a special interest in supporting people diagnosed with cancer and their loved ones. I believe psychotherapy can help individuals adjust to the threats cancer presents to their survival and identity, reduce anxiety and depression, teach effective coping skills, and develop open communication with partners, family members, and the medical team regarding treatment, quality of life, and end-of-life decisions.
How do people cope with a cancer diagnosis? Typically, people experience a diagnosis of cancer as sudden, catastrophic, and life-threatening. It feels like a shock. The process of diagnosing and treating cancer involves multiple grueling interventions that are both physically and emotionally distressing. These may include tests, anxious waiting periods, receiving disturbing news, and participating in painful life-saving treatments. Cancer patients sometimes perceive themselves as burdensome and vulnerable or need to learn how to be dependent on others.
Much like throwing a rock into a pond, a cancer diagnosis has a rippling effect on all aspects of the patient’s life. For example, most people will experience one or more of the following challenges: losing independence, work and money worries, weight loss, unfulfilled dreams, changes in family dynamics and romantic relationships, body disfigurement, loss of pleasure and enjoyment, disability, conflict with caregivers and the medical team, and anticipatory grief. Patients and caregivers do not generally know how to cope with the struggles they face—at diagnosis, during treatment, or after treatment has finished. There is anger, guilt, frustration, hopelessness, sadness, fear, anxiety, isolation, and, occasionally, suicidal thoughts.
When working with cancer patients and their caregivers, I employ motivational interviewing to help untangle ambivalence, panic, and fear. A solution-focused approach helps me both empower patients and challenge the helplessness they, and their families, sometimes experience. I use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to challenge dysfunctional and unproductive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. CBT empowers patients to recognize and address negative beliefs that might impede their acceptance of a diagnosis and their ability to cope with the disease.
Upon identifying dysfunctional beliefs, cancer patients and their caregivers can challenge these negative thoughts, cultivate rational responses, and foster a more positive mindset, especially in relation to their role in adapting to the disease.