When this book first appeared in 1981, it was the first to deal comprehensively with major issues in the psychotherapeutic treatment of cancer patients. It remains the standard volume in the field, drawing together a broad spectrum of work using psychological approaches to treatment of cancer patients and to understanding the disease's sociological and psychological implications. Distinguished contributors from medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychology, social work, family and group therapy, and nursing examine key issues, including the role of aggression in the onset and treatment of cancer; sexual functioning of patients; cancer as an emotionally regressive experience, cancer in children, and the countertransference responses of a therapist working with a cancer patient. This volume will be of particular value to helping professionals who deal with cancer patients and their families.

This new book by international experts in psycho-oncology has arisen from the teaching academies offered by the International Psycho-oncology Society. It distills the wisdom and experience from the training manuals dedicated to individual psychological therapies and combines them into an accessible handbook for clinicians in cancer care today. The editors have brought together leading researchers and therapists, who provide accounts of the prominent models of psychotherapy currently being used in cancer care, the key themes they address and the essential techniques needed to apply each approach successfully. Helpful clinical illustrations are woven throughout the book to make overt the strategies found in each model. Provides practical guidance about how to deliver a range of individual, group, couple and family interventions that have proven utility in cancer care. Describes comprehensively each model of psychotherapy as taught by experts delivering the International Psycho-Oncology Society’s Educational Academy on cancer care for patients and their families. Features practical suggestions on therapy delivery from the world’s leading proponents of each therapy. Serves as a valuable tool to assist teaching and to facilitate research into psychological interventions in oncology, palliative care and bereavement. Functions as a readily accessible resource for clinicians struggling to support someone effectively, through its provision of insight into the common challenges and traps that arise when providing patients with emotional support. This practical handbook will help not only psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers but also physicians, surgeons, general practitioners and nurses interested in better understanding and supporting the patients and families they care for.

Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCP) for advanced cancer patients is a highly effective intervention for advanced cancer patients, developed and tested in randomized controlled trials by Breitbart and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. This treatment manual for group therapy provides clinicians in the oncology and palliative care settings a highly effective, brief, structured intervention shown to be effective in helping patients sustain meaning, hope and quality of life.

Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully provides valuable insight into the experience of patients and families living with advanced cancer and describes a novel psychotherapeutic approach to help them live meaningfully, while also facing the threat of mortality. Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully, also known by the acronym CALM, is a brief supportive-expressive intervention that can be delivered by a wide range of trained healthcare providers as part of cancer care or early palliative care. The authors provide an overview of the clinical experience and research that led to the development of CALM, a clear description of the intervention, and a manualized guide to aid in its delivery. Situated in the context of early palliative care, this text is destined to be become essential reading for healthcare professionals engaged in providing psychological support to patients and their families who face the practical and profound problems of advanced disease.

Meaning-Centered-Psychotherapy in the Cancer Setting provides a theoretical context for Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCP), a non-pharmalogic intervention which has been shown to enhance meaning and spiritual well-being, increase hope, improve quality of life, and significantly decrease depression, anxiety, desire for hastened death, and symptom burden distress in the cancer setting. Based on the work of Viktor Frankl and his concept of logotherapy, MCP is an innovative intervention for clinicians practicing in fields of Psycho-oncology, Palliative Care, bereavement, and cancer survivorship. This volume supplements two treatment manuals, Meaning-Centered Group Psychotherapy (MCGP) for Patients with Advanced Cancer and Individual Meaning -Centered Psychotherapy (IMCP) for Patients with Advanced Cancer by Dr. Breitbart, which offer a step-wise outline to conducting a specific set of therapy sessions. In addition to providing a theoretical background on the MCP techniques provided in the treatment manuals, this volume contains chapters on adapting MCP for different cancer-related populations and for different purposes and clinical problems including: interventions for cancer survivors, caregivers of cancer patients, adolescents and young adults with cancer, as a bereavement intervention, and cultural and linguistic applications in languages such as Mandarin, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Maintaining dignity for patients approaching death is a core principle of palliative care. Dignity therapy, a psychological intervention developed by Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov and his internationally lauded research group, has been designed specifically to address many of the psychological, existential, and spiritual challenges that patients and their families face as they grapple with the reality of life drawing to a close. In the first book to lay out the blueprint for this unique and meaningful intervention, Chochinov addresses one of the most important dimensions of being human. Being alive means being vulnerable and mortal; he argues that dignity therapy offers a way to preserve meaning and hope for patients approaching death. With history and foundations of dignity in care, and step by step guidance for readers interested in implementing the program, this volume illuminates how dignity therapy can change end-of-life experience for those about to die - and for those who will grieve their passing.

Cancer care today often provides state-of-the-science biomedical treatment, but fails to address the psychological and social (psychosocial) problems associated with the illness. This failure can compromise the effectiveness of health care and thereby adversely affect the health of cancer patients. Psychological and social problems created or exacerbated by cancer-including depression and other emotional problems; lack of information or skills needed to manage the illness; lack of transportation or other resources; and disruptions in work, school, and family life-cause additional suffering, weaken adherence to prescribed treatments, and threaten patients' return to health. Today, it is not possible to deliver high-quality cancer care without using existing approaches, tools, and resources to address patients' psychosocial health needs. All patients with cancer and their families should expect and receive cancer care that ensures the provision of appropriate psychosocial health services. Cancer Care for the Whole Patient recommends actions that oncology providers, health policy makers, educators, health insurers, health planners, researchers and research sponsors, and consumer advocates should undertake to ensure that this standard is met.