Therapy for Cancer Patients, Survivors, and Caregivers, from a Cancer Survivor
A cancer diagnosis changes everything. Not just your body, but your sense of time, your relationships, your identity, and your assumptions about the future. Whether you've just been diagnosed, are in active treatment, are several years into survivorship, or are caring for someone you love through their illness, the emotional weight of it deserves its own space.
This kind of work is sometimes called psycho-oncology, meaning therapy focused on the psychological and emotional dimensions of cancer.
I'm a cancer survivor myself, and that lived experience is part of what I bring to this work alongside my clinical training. For many clients, it means not having to start from scratch in explaining what cancer actually feels like.
What you might be feeling
Fear and uncertainty about what comes next, including scans, results, treatment decisions, and recurrence
Grief for your body, your future, or the version of yourself you had before
Frustration with people who say the wrong thing, or who don't understand what it's like to live in a body that you can’t trust anymore
A pressure to "stay positive" or "stay strong" that leaves no room for what you actually feel
Exhaustion from advocating for yourself inside the medical system, or from managing other people's reactions to your diagnosis
A sense of dislocation, with your old life on one side and this new reality on the other, and no clear map between them
For people with childhood trauma, or just difficult family relationships growing up, medical trauma can resurface and intensify aspects of your emotions and metal health that had seemed to be in check, but now may be running rampant. So not only do you have to deal with cancer, you now have to deal with your past.
How I Help
A cancer diagnosis doesn't just bring symptoms and treatments. It brings a complete reorganization of how you relate to your body, your time, and your sense of self. Therapy is a place to actually feel and process all of that, without having to perform resilience or manage someone else's emotions about your situation.
I integrate relational, somatic, and existential approaches, which means we'll work with both the felt sense of what's happening in your body and the deeper questions your illness is asking of you. The trauma that impacts our body impacts our mind and heart as well, it’s all connected.
For people newly diagnosed
We can focus on the acute work of absorbing the news, communicating with loved ones, and making treatment decisions from a grounded place.
For people in treatment:
We can work with the day-to-day weight of it, including your side effects, your disrupted identity, the strain on your relationships, and the question of how to stay yourself inside a process that can feel dehumanizing.
For survivors and people in remission:
We can work with the strange in-between of survivorship, including scanxiety (the anxiety and panic that can build before each test/scan), fear of recurrence, medical trauma, and what it means to rebuild your life after this interruption.
For caregivers and loved ones:
We can hold space for your own grief, fear, and exhaustion, which often get sidelined when someone you love is the one who's sick.
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A New Relationship with Your Body and Your Life
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Healing during a crisis often looks more like learning to live with uncertainty and meet your suffering with compassion and meaning.
If you're navigating cancer, your own or someone you love's, and want a space that can hold the full weight of it, let's begin.
Learn more about my general approach to therapy here.