Counseling Individuals With Life-Threatening Illness

by Kenneth J. Doka

Overview

With a Foreword by Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD

"Where was this book when I was new as a counselor?....Fortunately, it is here now, and with all the scope, depth, resourcefulness, and balance required for such situations."
-Dr. Robert Kastenbaum, PhD

"This book will now be an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to understand, counsel, or otherwise help individuals with life-threatening illnesses and their family members."
--Charles A. Corr, PhD, CT

"Without question, this is the book you'll want your own caregivers to have read should you ever contend with life-threatening illness."
--Therese A. Rando, PhD, BCETS, BCBT

Life-threatening illness is not only a medical crisis; it is a psychological, social, and spiritual crisis as well. Also, serious illness affects not only the patient, but the patient's family. Therefore, the two major premises of this book are that care in life-threatening illness must be holistic, and it must be family centered.

Doka presents an insightful, comprehensive guide for counselors, social workers, and health care professionals, as they assist clients experiencing a serious illness. The book builds on a model developed by the author, based upon earlier work by Avery Weisman and E. M. Patterson.

Doka's model presents illness as a series of phases:

• Prediagnostic: individuals may decide how to handle troubling symptoms or to take certain diagnostic tests
• Diagnostic: centered on the existential crisis posed by the diagnosis
• Chronic: individuals must cope with the disease and treatment
• Recovery: acknowledges that even when individuals survive an encounter with life-threatening illness, there are still considerable issues that must be resolved
• Terminal phase: individuals deal with the inevitability of death

In his discussion of each phase, the author delineates specific tasks for patients to perform and the issues they must adapt to. He also presents strategies for counselors and health care professionals to use with individuals in each phase of illness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826117328
Publisher:	Springer Publishing Company
Publication date:	09/15/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	754 KB

About the Author

Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, is Professor of Gerontology at the Graduate School of The College of New Rochelle and Senior Consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America. A prolific author, Dr. Doka's books include Spirituality and End-of-Life Care, Grieving Beyond Gender, Pain Management at the End-of-Life: Bridging the Gap between Knowledge and Practice, Living with Grief Series; Men Don't Cry, Women Do: Transcending Gender Stereotypes of Grief; Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow: Living with Life Threatening Illness; Children Mourning, Mourning Children; Caregiving and Loss: Family Needs, Professional Responses; AIDS, Fear and Society; Aging and Developmental Disabilities; and Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice. In addition to these books, he has published over 60 article and book chapters, and is the Editor of Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, and Journeys: A Newsletter to Help in Bereavement. Dr. Doka has served as President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and on the Board of Directors and as Chair of the International Group of Dying, Death and Bereavement. He is the recipient of The Association for Death Education and Counseling Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Death Education. He has lectured widely throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and participates in the annual Hospice Foundation of America Teleconference, hosted by Cokie Roberts, and has appeared on CNN, and Nightline, among other outstanding achievements.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Historical Perspectives on Illness
Chapter 3 - Reacting and Adapting to Illness
Chapter 4 - A Model of the Illness Experience
Chapter 5 - The Prediagnostic and Diagnostic Phases
Chapter 6 - The Chronic Phase
Chapter 7 - The Recovery Phase
Chapter 8 - The Terminal Phase
Chapter 9 - Illness and the Family
Chapter 10 - The Professional Caregiver
Appendices
Index