What is the impact of cancer on psychological well-being?

 

Cancer affects your body, but it also affects your emotions and sense of self. Common feelings during this life-changing experience include anxiety, fear, hopelessness, and depression. Roles at home, school, and work can be affected. Additionally, the physical impacts of cancer, fear of disease recurrence, alteration of one’s identity, and perceived loss of control or certainty can also exacerbate any pre-existing mental health concerns or stress.

 

Who can benefit from working with our Onco-psychologist at Center for CBT?

 

Mental health care and additional emotional support can help patients, survivors, and their loved ones better manage and adjust to life post-cancer diagnosis. Center for CBT’s Onco-Psychologist, Dr. Kennedy Wong, provides psychotherapy to adult cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones. Common areas of concern addressed in session include:

 

• Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCPT) to help individuals experiencing feelings of despair and a loss of meaning in the context of their illness or while watching a loved one endure cancer diagnosis and treatment. A meaning-centered approach to treatment can help clients focus on the importance of creating, reconnecting with, experiencing, and sustaining meaning in the face of illness.

• Problem-solving and communication strategies for promoting adaptive coping and adjustment to the various stressors that impact patients, survivors, and their caregivers from diagnosis, to treatment, survivorship, or end-of-life.

• Parent coaching to provide developmentally appropriate language and support for discussing a cancer diagnosis with their children. Although Dr. Wong does not treat pediatric cancer patients or provide individual services for children in the context of a parent’s diagnosis, she can provide additional resources or referrals to providers in the community offering that direct support.