The Importance of Social Support When Diagnosed with Cancer
Dr. Suzanne Engelman
California Licensed Psychologist PSY7977
Board Certified in Biofeedback
Certified Thanatologist
Certified Animal Assisted Therapist
LOCATION:
30131 Town Center Drive
Suite # 268
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
Suzanne R. Engelman, PHD, BCB, FT
- Over 4 million people are living with cancer today
- Cancer is a stressful event that influences interpersonal relationships!!!!
How does a Cancer Diagnosis Affect Your Relationships?
- Your friends may withdraw or react inappropriately
- May affect relationships indirectly by restricting your social activities—which will affect your access to interpersonal resources---just when they are most needed.
A Cancer Diagnosis may…
- Challenge your basic assumptions about yourself and the world
- Lead to a sense of personal inadequacy, diminished feelings of control, increased feelings of vulnerability, sense of confusion
Types of Social Support
- Emotional
- Informational
- Instrumental
Unhelpful Emotional Support
- People without cancer may see their role as trying to cheer up the person with cancer; However, the majority of cancer patients may feel disturbed by “unrelenting optimism”!
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Lack of emotional support from family and friends is especially harmful:
- “It will all work out”, or empathy (“ I know how you feel”) can only go so far
- may be viewed as minimization of the problem; however,
- People without cancer may think it is harmful for people with cancer to discuss their illness--that major concerns for people with cancer are cosmetic. However, people with cancer may feel major concerns center on recurrence and death
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87% of people with cancer said they coped with their illness by keeping their feelings to themselves because of concern about how others might react to their expression of feelings.
Informational Support
- Provides information used to guide or advise
- May enhance perceptions of control by providing patients with ways of manage their illness and cope with symptoms
- Learning how to manage illness may enhance your optimism about the future and reduce feelings of future vulnerability
- Ameliorate sense of confusion and help to understand cause, course, treatment of illness
- May help you to be a positive role model to another person with cancer
- By promoting a your individual resources, spouses, family members are also relieved of cancer related distress’
- Is a means of empowerment for you
Instrumental Support
- Provision of material goods
- Transportation
- Money
- Assistance with household chores
- Tangible support including practical assistance and medical care
- Can offset loss of control people feel during cancer treatment by providing tangible resources they can use to exert control over their experience
Support Groups
- Takes place in atmosphere of caring and acceptance
- Provides a peer setting-meeting with others who have cancer provides unique needs
- Can be structured or unstructured conversations
- Educational groups primarily foster informational support
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6 months after intervention had ended, patients had reduced psychological distress, altered immune function (increased natural killer cell activity); decreased T cells, increased lymphocytes ( 1993; Fawzy) compared with patients in control group
- The intervention decreased recurrence and increased survival 6 yrs later ( and Yalom, Spiegel, bloom 1989)
Group support and health outcomes
- Structured group interventions for people with cancer improves psychological well being, reduces anxiety and depression and improves quality of life, coping and mental adjustment
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Helping people with cancer face their fears directly creates an intimacy that builds…”social glue!” (Spiegel)
- Allowing people with cancer to express negative emotions allows them to feel more joy!
- Its not How long you live, but how WELL you live!
Suzanne R. Engelman, PH.D., BCB, FT (suzyengelm@aol.com) is a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Laguna Niguel.