LiveWorld Transcripts

iBreast presents

Dr. Marisa Weiss and Dr. David Spiegel
Managing Difficult Breast Cancer Feelings

October 19, 2000

Learn how to manage normal feelings that arise with breast cancer-­like anger, guilt, jealousy, and shame. Dr. Marisa Weiss welcomes author and psychiatrist Dr. David Spiegel of Stanford University. You don't have to feel alone with "bad" feelings any longer.

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Ibreast: Welcome, everyone, to our Third Thursday ibreast.com Night-time Chat, held in collaboration with Y-ME, a non-profit support organization, and The Health Library of Stanford Hospital and Clinics, www.healthlibrary.stanford.edu. Our moderator this evening is Dr. Marisa Weiss, a breast cancer specialist with an active practice in the Philadelphia area. In addition, Dr. Weiss is president and founder of ibreast.com, and of Living Beyond Breast CancerŪ. She is author of the book "Living Beyond Breast Cancer." We will only be taking questions tonight that relate to our topic, Managing Difficult Breast Cancer Feelings, so please hold other questions for future Third Thursday chats at ibreast.com. If you sign up for free email at the site www.ibreast.com/res news signup.html you will receive advance notice of all live events. Now, Dr. Weiss.

Dr. Weiss: Thank you. We have a new collaborator for this month's Third Thursday Chat--a wonderful, nationwide support organization, and their name really says it all--Y-ME. Why should anyone have to face the physical and emotional pain of breast cancer? You have every right to feel angry, but what about jealous, guilty and ashamed? You've probably experienced all that, and more. But burying those uncomfortable feelings or pretending they're not there is not a healthy response. You need positive ways to acknowledge and cope with difficult feelings. I'm delighted to introduce tonight's guest, Dr. David Spiegel, Professor and Associate Chairman of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Spiegel really opened our eyes to the role of feelings with his research, which showed that women with metastatic breast cancer who participate in support groups actually live longer. Dr. Spiegel has also written countless articles and a very important book (co-authored with Catherine Classen, Ph.D.) called "Group Therapy for Cancer Patients", published by Basic Books. It presents the rationale, methods, and results of intensive supportive care for those with cancer. This book is intended to be a guide for "putting the caring back into health care." So, welcome to Dr. Spiegel, and to all of you who are participating. We have a full hour and a half to answer your questions and help you with your concerns.

Dr. Spiegel: Thank you, Marisa. I'm looking forward to questions from our audience.

Sally: I can't help feeling why me? Then I feel dreadful because I wouldn't wish this on anyone else. How do I start to sort out these feelings?

Dr. Spiegel: Well it's inevitable that people will ask themselves that question, and there is a certain injustice in anyone getting cancer and at the same time we are all mortal and something will get us sooner or later. I am a little concerned that you feel so dreadful about asking the question because it doesn't literally mean that you would wish you illness on anyone else. It is possible to feel a sense of injustice about the cancer without thinking that anyone else deserves it more than you do. I think people get a lot of help in support groups in dealing with exactly those issues, and you are in a room with 8 other women who have exactly the same issues, who have the same illness and ask the same question, and aren't wishing it on one another. I think a good support group could help you deal with that.

New Life: I am strangely calm about my situation, which seems to upset my partner. How can I help him to be accepting but still fight it with me? I don't intend giving in to it and letting it run my life.

Dr. Spiegel: What sometimes happens in couples is that each member picks up one side of their joint ambivalence and that can be a problem because it can drive a wedge between them instead of helping them deal together with the same issues. So, it sounds to me as though you are somewhat conflicted about showing any emotion related to the illness feeling that you would just be giving in to it and collapsing if you did, and I suspect that the more constrained you are the more emotional he is. He is feeling things for both of you. So I suspect that if you let yourself be a little more emotional he might be a little less.

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