Onkologisch Kranke als Patienten der psychotherapeutischen Praxis

Background

The high prevalence of cancer and the considerable psychological comorbidity is a challenge for psychotherapists. There are, however, relatively few patients in outpatient psychotherapy. Aim of the study was to survey outpatient psychotherapists concerning this issue and their attitudes towards the treatment of cancer patients.

Methods

All outpatient psychotherapists of an East-German city were surveyed using semi-structured interviews.

Methods

There are various reasons for the relatively rare visits of cancer patients in psychotherapeutic practices: For instance the subjective lack of specific competence, the fear of many psychotherapists to treat physically ill people, insufficient fitting of the relatively inflexible organization structure of psychotherapeutic settings with the vicissitudes of life among physically ill people, e.g. long waiting periods until the begin of treatment, furthermore the psychotherapeutic training focuses on psychosomatic and not so much on somatopsychic perspectives. A further problem is the widespread attitude about psychic causation of cancer, which is contradictory to scientific evidence.

Conclusions

Psychotherapists who want to treat cancer patients need specific and in-depth training in psychooncology.