Abstract
Among the advanced cancer population, existential concerns are major issues which promote significant distress. For those patients who are in fact facing death, meaning and the preservation of meaning are not only clinically and existentially important but are central concepts to a therapeutic intervention. Nearly 15 years ago, our research group at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center began to understand that a meaning-centered approach to psychosocial care was imperative to alleviate existential distress among advanced cancer patients. Based on Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and the principles of existential psychology and philosophy, we developed “meaning-centered psychotherapy” (MCP) to help patients with advanced cancer sustain or enhance a sense of meaning, peace, and purpose in their lives even as they approach the end of life. This chapter provides the reader with an overview of our work in developing, testing, and adapting meaning-centered psychotherapy (MCP). We offer an overview of the session content in the MCP intervention, including didactics, experiential exercises, and illustrative excerpts from noteworthy sessions. We provide findings from our clinical trials, which support the efficacy of MCP as an intervention to increase a sense of meaning, spiritual well-being, and hope, while decreasing end-of-life despair. Furthermore, we present current adaptations of MCP aimed to serve distressed populations, including bereaved parents, cancer caregivers, and survivors.
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Breitbart, W., Masterson, M. (2016). Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy in the Oncology and Palliative Care Settings. In: Russo-Netzer, P., Schulenberg, S., Batthyany, A. (eds) Clinical Perspectives on Meaning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41397-6_12
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