Abstract
Traditionally, the cancer patient has been a passive recipient of various therapies—exerting very little personal direction over either the management or the outcome of his or her disease. Unlike patients with diabetes or hypertension,(1) for example, cancer patients generally adopt a passive role in their treatment, aside from the actual consent to therapy or refusal thereof. The cancer patient literally presents his or her body to the clinic or hospital, where it is examined by a variety of specialists, subjected to surgery, irradiated, and/or treated with toxic chemotherapeutic agents. Through all of this, the patient often feels like an object, while the family stands by, feeling uninformed and helpless, unable to assist the patient through the various discomforts and fears he or she faces.
The work described in this chapter was done while the author was Associate Director, Cancer Rehabilitation Program, Mayo Comprehensive Cancer Center. It was funded by Contract CN 45120 from the National Cancer Institute.
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© 1979 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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Cox, B.G. (1979). The Cancer Patient as Educator and Counselor. In: Taché, J., Selye, H., Day, S.B. (eds) Cancer, Stress, and Death. Sloan-Kettering Institute Cancer Series. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3459-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-3459-0_8
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