Cancer
When you or someone you love has been diagnosed…
Family Counseling helps everyone cope because cancer always affects each family member.
- Family members struggle with different emotional issues.
- A cancer diagnosis, throws everyone off balance.
- Understanding how the diagnosis impacts each person is an part of knowing how to support each other.
- Everyone experiences feelings of isolation.
- Feel less helpless by actively dealing with the emotional pain of illness.
- Talking about problems can actually make them more manageable.
As a family therapist, I understand how the behavior of individuals affects the whole family. Everyone in the family has their own concerns as a result of the illness:
- Spouses need to figure out the meaning of the illness in relation to their own life.
- Couples often have a difficult time talking about the diagnosis because of fears about the future and how life may be different.
- Problems are created by the way family members communicate, or don't communicate, with each other.
- Tensions in a family will prevent people from understanding each other and perpetuate hurtful behaviors.
- Family counseling can help each person look differently at the situation and introduce new ways of behaving so everyone can help and support each other.
Individual therapy for adults, children or teens is a way to reduce the emotional distress caused by a cancer diagnosis. Less family stress helps everyone focus on what's important like making good choices about managing the illness, sharing quality time together and preserving hope for the future.
Therapy can help you develop a plan with goals to:
- Relieve the immediate feelings of distress
- Improve problematic behavior
- Improve coping skills
- Improve social skills
- Resolve conflicts
- Prevent things from getting worse
- Maximize family and other support
A cancer diagnosis is new territory and it will take some time to discover what works best for you and your family. It may not be possible to control everything that is happening in your life. Yet, you will always have choices about how to feel and what to think about your situation. Family counseling will help maintain the "quality of life" for the entire family in the face of cancer treatment.