Living Your Life With Cancer Through Acceptance And Commitment Therapy

This valuable self-help book for people affected by cancer, their loved ones and friends focuses on self-care when life hurts. It explores the impact of cancer and explains why the usual ways of coping may leave people stuck. The first book of its kind to focus on the scientifically based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach, it helps people to find ways to cope with painful thoughts and feelings, and to rebuild a meaningful life despite the cancer. With an emphasis on value-based living the book illustrates skills such as mindfulness and the development of acceptance to help people affected by cancer to participate in a fuller life and gain a greater sense of well-being. It combines evidence-based practice with the experiences of people who are living with cancer in the form of numerous quotations throughout, as well as paper and pencil ‘thought’ exercises. Living Your Life with Cancer through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people affected by cancer to feel more able to sit with the uncertainty of their future, show themselves kindness and compassion and to learn to be true to themselves, no matter what the cancer throws at them. It is also important reading for psychological therapists working in oncology.

This compassionate book presents dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a proven psychological intervention that Marsha M. Linehan developed specifically for the impossible situations of life--and which she and Elizabeth Cohn Stuntz now apply to the unique challenges of cancer for the first time. *How can you face the fear, sadness, and anger without being paralyzed by them? *Is it possible to hold on to hope without being in denial? *How can you nurture supportive relationships when you have barely enough energy to take care of yourself? Learn powerful DBT skills that can help you make difficult treatment decisions, manage overwhelming emotions, speak up for your needs, and tolerate distress. The stories and collective wisdom of other cancer patients and survivors illustrate the coping skills and show how you can live meaningfully, even during the darkest days.

When we hear that someone close to us has been diagnosed with cancer, we want nothing more than to comfort them with words of hope, support, and love. But sometimes we don't know what to say or do and don't feel comfortable asking. With sensitive insights and thoughtful anecdotes, Help Me Live provides a personal yet thoroughly researched account of words and actions that are most helpful.

Geriatric Psycho-Oncology is a comprehensive handbook that provides best practice models for the management of psychological, cognitive, and social outcomes of older adults living with cancer and their families. Chapters cover a wide range of topics including screening tools and interventions, psychiatric emergencies and disorders, physical symptom management, communication issues, and issues specific to common cancer sites. A resource section is appended to provide information on national services and programs. This book features contributions from experts designed to help clinicians review, anticipate and respond to emotional issues that often arise in the context of treating older cancer patients. Numerous cross-references and succinct tables and figures make this concise reference easy to use. Geriatric Psycho-Oncology is an ideal resource for helping oncologists and nurses recognize when it may be best to refer patients to their mental health colleagues and for those who are establishing or adding psychosocial components to existing clinics.

Dramatically change your life in just minutes a day with this powerful guided journal. When you are faced with life’s challenges, it’s easy to lose track of what’s important, get stuck in your thoughts and emotions, and become bogged down by day-to-day problems. Even if you’ve made a commitment to live according to your core values, the ‘real-world’ has a way of driving a wedge between you and a deeper, more meaningful life. Now there’s a flexible program for learning how to practice a popular, proven-effective therapy protocol on your schedule! With The ACT Daily Journal, you’ll learn all about the six core processes of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)—including mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based living—and even learn about a seventh: self-compassion. If there was ever a time to adopt the ACT approach to living, it’s now. By applying ACT to your life, you’ll learn how to roll with life’s punches, and stay in contact with the present moment, even when you have unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. The gift of being present is becoming increasingly valuable in these uncertain times of conflict and chaos; it’s never been so important to live flexibly, with more meaning, and with a deeper understanding of shared struggles and our inherent humanity. ACT is more than just a therapy—it’s a framework for living well. It helps us accept. It teaches us to make a commitment to what we deeply care about. And it works best when practiced daily. Let this journal guide you toward what really matters to you.

A guide to ACT: the revolutionary mindfulness-based program for reducing stress, overcoming fear, and finding fulfilment – now updated. International bestseller, 'The Happiness Trap', has been published in over thirty countries and twenty-two languages. NOW UPDATED. Popular ideas about happiness are misleading, inaccurate, and are directly contributing to our current epidemic of stress, anxiety and depression. And unfortunately, popular psychological approaches are making it even worse! In this easy-to-read, practical and empowering self-help book, Dr Russ Harries, reveals how millions of people are unwittingly caught in the 'The Happiness Trap', where the more they strive for happiness the more they suffer in the long term. He then provides an effective means to escape through the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a groundbreaking new approach based on mindfulness skills. By clarifying your values and developing mindfulness (a technique for living fully in the present moment), ACT helps you escape the happiness trap and find true satisfaction in life. Mindfulness skills are easy to learn and will rapidly and effectively help you to reduce stress, enhance performance, manage emotions, improve health, increase vitality, and generally change your life for the better. The book provides scientifically proven techniques to: reduce stress and worry; rise above fear, doubt and insecurity; handle painful thoughts and feelings far more effectively; break self-defeating habits; improve performance and find fulfilment in your work; build more satisfying relationships; and, create a rich, full and meaningful life.

Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Cancer presents an eight-week course for MBCT which has been tried and tested over ten years of clinical use, and is targeted specifically for people with cancer. There is growing evidence of mindfulness as a successful and cost-effective intervention for reducing the negative psychological impact of cancer and treatment Draws upon the author’s experience of working with people with cancer, and her own recent experience of using mindfulness with cancer diagnosis and treatment Stories from cancer patients illustrate the learning and key themes of the course Includes new short practices and group processes developed by the author

‘This isn’t living, this is just existing.’ A long-term physical health condition – a chronic illness, or even a disability – can take over your existence. Battling against the effects of the condition can take so much of your time and energy that it feels like the rest of your life is ‘on hold’. The physical symptoms of different conditions will vary, as will the way you manage them. But the kinds of psychological stress the situation brings are common to lots of long-term health problems: worry about the future, sadness about what has been lost, frustration at changes, guilt about being a burden, friction with friends and family. You can lose your sense of purpose and wonder ‘What’s the point?’ Trapped in a war against your own illness, every day is just about the battle, and it can seem impossible to find achievement and fulfilment in life if the condition cannot be cured. It doesn’t have to be like that. Using the latest developments in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which emphasise mindfulness and acceptance, and including links to downloadable audio exercises and worksheets, this book will show you how you can live better despite your long-term condition. It will teach you to spot the ways of coping that haven’t been working for you, how to make sure that troubling thoughts and unwanted feelings don’t run your life, how to make sense of the changes in your circumstances, to make the most of today and work towards a future that includes more of the things that matter to you. If you stop fighting a losing battle, and instead learn how to live well with the enemy, then – even with your long-term condition – you’ll find yourself not simply existing, but really living again.