Description:

Training cancer patients in Stress Management and Dialectic Behavior Therapy methods to challenge worries, ineffective self-management, and ambivalence, using Motivational Interviewing:

1. Positive Inner dialogue [e.g., messages of safety and choice] to decrease physical stress, heal mind-body alienation, and replace passive compliance with active participation.
2. Dispelling negative image of the body as weak and cancer as “spreading,” with images of the body holding cancer in place in lymph nodes and in the blood’s filtering system, the lungs – “99% of you is healthy and working with treatment to remove the weak and confused cancer cells that make up less than 1% of your body.”
3. Presenting chemotherapy (and medical treatment) as a “strong ally” capable of destroying rapidly dividing cells, such as hair and cancer cells. Temporary hair loss, therefore, becomes a sign that the medication is working. “Your healthy hair cells will recover, but the weak, confused cancer cells will be destroyed and removed from your body.”
4. Deep relaxation and Self-Hypnosis to decrease the stress response and to keep patients in a state similar to the most recuperative phases of REM sleep.
5. Shifting to a protective role toward one’s body that evokes compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and worth, “no matter what happens and regardless of what anyone says.”
6. Encouraging the expression of feelings [in writing, art, and speech] to facilitate the processing of emotions through higher brain functions, reduce stress, and enhance immuno-competency.

Educational Objectives:

1. Describe the key words/phrases that contribute to patient stress, resistance, and depression.
2. Demonstrate the ability to help patients replace negative hypnotic statements/self-talk/images with statements that lower stress and increase empowerment.
3. State at least two images that acknowledge the body’s ability to cope with medical treatment.

*Sessions may be edited for content and to preserve confidentiality*