Treating People With Chronic Disease A Psychological Guide - Psychologists in Independent Practice Book Series

With increasing frequency, psychotherapy practitioners encounter patients who struggle with enduring physical illness, such as cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and kidney disease. Chronic physical illnesses have a common psychological thread: the individual's experience of life will never again return to the pre-illness sense of self, of options, of invulnerability, of obliviousness to the body's functioning. The individual's strongest wish is to return to "normal". The psychotherapist's strongest wish is to heal. The uncertainty, progression and unpredictability of illness create anxiety in the therapist as well as in the patient.;This accessible volume offers practitioners straightforward guidelines for overcoming these anxieties and helping people adjust to lives drastically changed by chronic illness. Each chapter presents a different view of illness from a different vantage point, reinforcing the authors' holographic model of treatment. Detailed case examples in support of the text are offered throughout. In addition to treatment strategies, the authors address environment, countertransference issues and the special needs of children and families struck by chronic physical disease. An invaluable, comprehensive guide to related resources, useful for the chronically ill as well as for practitioners, is also included. This volume builds a bridge connecting medicine and psychology, body and mind, in innovative, practical ways.