Peer Support Throughout Your Journey
InsightWINTER 2013/2014 Supporting Each Other: Peer Support Throughout Your Journey BY JOSH FERNANDEZ eresa Li of Chicago, Ill., was shocked to learn she had stage III breast cancer. QUALITY OF LIFE T A 39-year-old mother of two children This type of support can take the form of phone calls, who were younger than 8 at the electronic messaging through online chat rooms or time of her diagnosis, she felt forums, one-on-one or group in-person meetings, and troubled by the treatment through social media sites including Facebook. decisions she had to make, the David Spiegel, MD, director of the Center on Stress uncertainty of her future and and Health and professor of psychiatry and behavioral how to tell her children about sciences at Stanford University, says this type of support her diagnosis. is important because people are social creatures and a “It all seemed so over- cancer journey can be isolating, especially if you feel you whelming, and I knew I couldn’t are burdening family and friends with your worries. TE handle it all by myself,” Teresa, “Part of what is helpful with peer emotional support RE SA LI now 41, remembers. and counseling is that you feel less alone with your Then she discovered a breast cancer hotline. Speaking disease,” Dr. Spiegel says. “It helps you learn to treat your with a volunteer with a similar diagnosis eased her emotions as friends rather than enemies, and that your worries. From there, she became involved in a monthly in- feelings are not something to be suppressed for your person support group for women with cancer and, soon family and friends.
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