The psychology of cancer: How support systems enhance the well-being of cancer patients

The problem addressed by this study is the lack of information available to help concerned people create an effective support system for a friend or family member who is diagnosed with cancer. Six cancer support systems, including both cancer patients and their supporters, were interviewed in order to find out what was effective in these support systems. All the support systems were described by the cancer patient as good or helpful . For purposes of this study, the concentration was on cancer patients\u27 personal support people, consisting of family and friends. Major themes addressed in the interviews were: having support already in place, commitment, giving and receiving love, having no choice but to support, belief in the possibility of healing, openness to change, amount and variety of support, offering anything and everything, layers of support, making offers of support specific, supporters\u27 inspiring and pushing , different strokes, cultivating self-assertion, having support affirmed, supporters getting support, accepting mortality, joy in life, intimacy, being fully present, rewards intrinsic to supporting and finding new meaning in life. Conclusions were not formed concerning what necessarily makes a good support system. What was good for one cancer patient or group of supporters was not necessarily good for another. The help given also varied depending on the resources of a particular support group. Possibilities for helping are described in order that other support systems might experiment with them and vary them as seems appropriate. Although the particular ways of supporting differed from group to group, all felt that they had come forward to give help, and continued to help, as a response to the love they had for the cancer patient they were helping and a sense of doing right . Supporters found that in being authentic to themselves and in honoring the love that existed between themselves and the cancer patient, they had no choice but to support. The love that existed between supporter and cancer patient sustained supporters in their often very difficult roles of supporting