The intervention from Psycho-oncology aims to provide preventive and therapeutic tools in individual, family and group assistance through various types of methodologies that allow to elaborate the necessary process of grief in the face of cancer.
Within the course of the oncological disease, the patient lives a usual process of mourning, which is healthy and necessary as an adaptation to a series of losses (health, identity, self-esteem, stability and security, the usual role in the family, at work, in sexual life, hope, beliefs…) regardless of the type of cancer suffered.
Psychology, in this case, seeks to offer specialized support to patients and their families at all stages of the disease with the aim of promoting coping strategies that allow adaptation to the disease, as well as coordination with other professionals to ensure comprehensive care. In this type of intervention it has been shown that, in addition to individualized therapy, mutual help groups are great promoters of the aforementioned processes.
What does the therapeutic work consist of?
The methodologies to be used are of different types: psychotherapeutic, relaxation techniques, art therapy… It consists of helping the person in treatment to express what he/she is feeling, since although it is painful, the mourning process must be lived, felt, shared, expressed in order to generate a sense of hope. The idea is not to do anything special but to treat the sick person as a person above all else, i.e., often it is simply “accompanying”.
As recommendations to family members and companions, we try to work on aspects such as the importance of personal self-care in order to be able to care for the other person.
Dealing with the detachment of the loved one
To a large extent, the therapeutic work is centered on accompaniment aimed at the elaboration of detachment, since it is not so easy to let a loved one leave and to be able to give permission to do so, or even to give oneself permission to leave.
It is necessary to avoid self-destruction or the process of “dying in life” and to direct the process of loss towards personal and family serenity as a process of personal growth and an opportunity to integrate into oneself the life shared with the other.
These processes of elaboration do not have a determined time of resolution since it will depend on many factors (the type of union or relationship between people, the situation, certain external factors…). It is a question of generating spaces of trust in which to help to live, not to survive.
For more information, you can consult the doctor’s website.