Group therapy for families facing a cancer crisis

The impact of the cancer diagnosis and its effects on the lives of patients and family members can put a serious strain on intra-family relationships. This paper describes how to initiate, lead and analyze supportive group therapy meetings for families of individuals with cancer based on our experiences in conducting more than 600 group sessions over the last 12 years. We have found that most families can benefit from multiple-family therapy sessions and that highly-stressed families can benefit significantly from both multiple- and single-family therapy meetings. Discussed is the need for therapists to be alert to non-verbal as well as verbal communications of families and the need for different interacting techniques for each type of therapy group. The meetings aim to overcome family members' resistance to discussing the emotional distress caused by the disease and to encourage them to bring into the open conflicts from the past, anxieties about the present, and fantasies regarding the future.