Psycho-oncology helps manage one’s mental and emotional states during the care of and recovery from breast cancer. Behnaz Sanjana finds out more.
An Overview
The journey through breast cancer is an arduous one that can also wreak havoc on one’s psychological wellbeing. Psycho-oncology provides psycho-social support to patients and their families, helping them to better cope with the myriad negative feelings and emotions stemming from the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Bahrain-based Anne-Laure Renard, who is an experienced coach with a degree in Psychology, has practised this discipline in Belgium, and explains how it can be particularly helpful in coping with the various fall-outs of breast cancer treatment.
“Patients experience pain, fatigue, shame, guilt, vulnerability, hair loss, nausea, an altered physical appearance, or loss of fertility and sexuality. It can impact their close relationships, quality of life and social image. A career interruption may be needed, social encounters can be unpredictable depending on the sufferer’s oft-changing feelings; the cost of treatment and loss of income can cause financial impacts and returning to work can be an apprehension,” she says.
She believes that good psycho-oncologists well understand the illness, its treatments, and various effects. “In the West, they are part of multi-disciplinary medical teams, bringing their input to the doctors on the mental state of the patient.”
Emotional Stages
Psychological distress can manifest at every stage of the treatment – from diagnosis to the period after remission. Anne-Laure explains: “Denial and suppression are often observed at the onset as they help the individual absorb the shock, but can become problematic over prolonged periods. Emotional distress occurs when a crisis situation exceeds the available resources, leading to anxiety and depression. While in remission, they may experience difficulties coping without medical support and dealing with the fear of potential resurgence of the cancer.”
PLAN OF ACTION
Anne-Laure sums up the invaluable support modes a psycho-oncologist can provide:
Psycho-educative – Normalising emotions and feelings, perceptions of the disease, the treatments and their effects. For example, it is a common belief to link the onset of cancer with stress while this has never been scientifically demonstrated.
Existential – Helping the patient to make sense of her experience, to integrate it into her life’s story, to deal with the feeling of vulnerability, psychological threats (death, body modifications, fertility, sexuality), the loss/changes in identity and self-perception.
One of my patients saw her cancer as a positive thing, as it helped her focus on what truly mattered in life. She was able to transform her life-changing experience into something positive and meaningful for her.
Psychological – Developing resilience and adapting, reducing the intensity and length of the distress, managing depression, anxiety or other psychological difficulties. It has been demonstrated that a positive attitude facilitates the treatments.
Psycho-somatic – Techniques to reduce the sensation of pain, cope with the fatigue, nausea and other physical symptoms.
Psycho-relational – What to tell the children, how to relate to them, how to integrate the illness and its treatments into the marital relationship, and dealing with extended family and friends.
Anne-Laure says: “Family members can also benefit from meeting the psycho-oncologist to better understand what the patient is going through. I have witnessed the positive impacts it has on those who choose to use it and am currently working on setting up a support group for breast cancer sufferers in Bahrain.”
