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Perhaps unintentionally, the editor of this book, Jonathan Burke sets the basis for debate between, on the one hand, authors offering psychoanalytically based psychotherapy or counselling to cancer patients and, on the other hand, those who regard the cancer as primary and advocate that counsellors need to be informed about the illness to assist patients effectively.
The psychoanalytically oriented authors represented here believe that they should not offer information (often regarding it as ‘teaching’), much less offer reassurance, which they see as avoiding a patient’s feelings. They regard their role as revealing unconscious processes and assisting patients through understanding. Those favouring a disease-focused approach believe it important, not only to provide relevant understanding of patients’ feelings, but also to provide information, appropriate reassurance, and support for patients to become as informed about their illness as they may need or wish to be.
Two chapters, ‘On Survivorship’ and ‘Palliative Care’ offer a disease-focused approach, providing advice about information that patients need and indicating what knowledge and awareness counsellors require to better help cancer patients. Other chapters, written from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, are less concerned with cancer per se, as they are with illustrating how a psychoanalytic approach informs their style of counselling or psychotherapy with cancer patients.
If there is a debate, then what can each side can learn from the other? This volume does not raise that question, but rather shows that, if anything, at present, there is limited traffic between the psychoanalytic theory-based workers and those who take a more illness and evidence-led approach.
A recent research study shows how important bridging this gap is. Caroline Kamau’s (2015) study ‘Preparing patients with cancer who work and treatment responsiveness’ suggests that patients can be helped towards a better cancer outcome if their carers offer us