A Psychological Survival Guide for Breast Cancer

By Phil Watts

Breast cancer is the third most common type of cancer in Australia and in the top five cancers in most other western countries. It is a disease which affects as many as 1 in 8 women who live to 85 years old. These cold hard statistics do not help deal with the devastation which a diagnosis of cancer can cause. The purpose of A Psychological Surv

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ogilvie Publishing (BNW Trust)
• Release date: Oct 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9780992412128

Book preview

SHATTERED

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The exact moment of knowing varies from person to person. For some, it is sitting in the specialist’s office as he or she opens the file on the desk and utters the words "it’s cancer". Your specialist may tell you in a factual way, perhaps pausing for a few moments in compassion, before getting into an explanation of your options. Chances are that you will miss most of what was said after those first words as your brain reacts with a sudden surge of adrenaline – fight, flight or freeze! None of those reactions allow you to really take in what the good doctor is telling you.

For many of you, the realisation occurred at an earlier stage. Perhaps you found a lump and, with a sinking feeling or a sense of foreboding, realised that something was wrong. Perhaps you went for a scan and the chatty, friendly radiologist suddenly went quiet or called in a doctor or other specialist for a second opinion. Maybe there was an incidental finding when you had a regular scan, or a scan for some other condition.

However it happened, the dark news is staring you in the face – cancer. In psychological research when someone wants to trigger the brain into negative emotions they flash certain words on a screen. Those words cause the brain to react faster than it would if nice words like love, happy or joy were used. The negative words used in brain reaction studies are words like blood, death, hate and, of course, cancer. Cancer is a word which comes with many strong connotations which are deeply embedded in the human psyche – something that occurs long before your cancer diagnosis.

Psychological research on memory talks about a category of events which are vividly remembered at the moment they happen. These are called ‘flashbulb memories’. People recall when the planes hit the Twin Towers, John Lennon was assassinated, or the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated on take-off. People recollect the events with vivid detail of what they were doing, wearing, thinking or feeling at the moment they heard the news.

In the same way, a flashbulb explodes in your mind as the cancer diagnosis and realisation takes place. At this moment, your life has been changed forever. This change may be anything from a short term derailment, through to your life turning into a catastrophic train