Coping with Cancer Stress: With an Introduction by Avery D. Weissman (Harvard Medical School, Boston)

The emotional pressures on cancer patients and their families are increasing and traditional supports are decreasing. This book attempts to provide a readable, authoritative and balanced review of the emotional pressures and coping methods of cancer patients, and the help currently available to them. The special problems of children and terminal patients with cancer, and the role of the family in coping, are also examined. A balanced and critical assessment is made of defects in health organisation, training of personnel and attitudes to cancer patients in Western society. A similar assessment is made of the growing tendency to self help, mutual help and group activities for such patients. While each individual needs to select coping aids best suited to his or her own temperament, medical advisors need to make more time available for discussion of technical, emotional, social and sexual problems. The availability of a cancer-treating "team" makes this feasible. Chapters were invited from physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists expert in this field, and they have responsed to the challenge of writing in non-technical language. This is so that readership can cross disciplinary boundaries and thus stimulate physicians, nurses, psychologists, sociologists, clergy and others, to satisfy some of the currently unmet needs of cancer patients. The reader may note a small amount of overlap between some chapters, permitted in order to maintain continuity and make each chapter complete in itself.