Coping with Physical Illness: (Current Topics in Mental Health)

This book discusses how human beings cope with serious physical ill­ ness and injury. A conceptual model for understanding the process of coping with the crisis of illness is provided, and basic adaptive tasks and types of coping skills are identified. The major portion of the book is organized around various types of physical illness. These physical illnesses, which almost all people face either in themselves or their family members, raise common relevant coping issues. The last few sections cover "the crisis of treatment," emphasizing the importance of unusual hospital environments and radical new medical treatments, of stresses on professional staff, and of issues related to death and the fear of dying. The material highlights the fact that people can successfully cope with life crises such as major ill­ ness and injury, rather than the fact that severe symptoms and/or breakdowns sometimes occur. The importance of support from professional care-givers, such as physicians, nurses, and social workers, and from family, friends, and other sources of help in the community, is emphasized. Many of the selections include case examples which serve to illustrate the material. Coping with Physical Illness has been broadly conceived to meet the needs of a diverse audience. There is substantial information about how human beings cope with illness and physical disability, but this material has never been collected in one place.

Table of Contents:
I. Overview and Perspective.- 1. The Crisis of Physical Illness: An Overview.- II. The Crisis of Illness: Stillbirth and Birth Defects.- 2. Chronic Grief.- 3. Maternal Reaction to the Loss of Multiple Births.- 4. Counseling Parents after the Birth of an Infant with Down’s Syndrome.- III. The Crisis of Illness: Cancer.- 5. Bearing Cancer.- 6. A Brave Family Faces Up to Breast Cancer.- 7. Family Mediation of Stress.- IV. The Crisis of Illness: Cardiovascular Disease.- 8. Psychological Hazards of Convalescence Following Myocardial Infarction.- 9. Psychological Responses to the Experience of Open-Heart Surgery.- 10. Rehabilitating the Stroke Patient through Patient-Family Groups.- V. The Crisis of Illness: Severe Burns.- 11. Long-Term Adjustment and Adaptation Mechanisms in Severely Burned Adults.- 12. Adjustment Problems of the Family of the Burn Patient.- VI The Crisis of Illness: Chronic Conditions.- 13. Long-Term Physical Illness in Childhood: A Challenge to Psychosocial Adaptation.- 14. Psychological Aspects of the Care of Children with Cystic Fibrosis.- 15. Coping with a Chronic Disability: Psychosocial Observations of Girls with Scoliosis.- VII. The Crisis of Treatment: Unusual Hospital Environments.- 16. The Hospital Environment: Its Impact on the Patient.- 17. Cancer, Emotions, and Nurses.- 18. Coping with Waiting: Psychiatric Intervention and Study in the Waiting Room of a Pediatric Oncology Clinic.- VIII The Crisis of Treatment: Survival by Machine.- 19. The CCU Nurse Has a Pacemaker.- 20. Survival by Machine: The Psychological Stress of Chronic Hemodialysis.- 21. Problems in Adaptation to Maintenance Hemodialysis.- IX. The Crisis of Treatment: Organ Transplants.- 22. The Vicissitudes and Vivification of Viki Vaughn.- 23. Kidney Transplantation and CopingMechanisms.- 24. Selection of Cardiac Transplant Recipients and Their Subsequent Psychosocial Adjustment.- X. The Crisis of Treatment: Stresses on Staff.- 25. Identity Problems and the Adaptation of Nurses to Severely Burned Children.- 26. The Psychological Stresses of Intensive Care Unit Nursing.- XI The Final Crisis: Death and the Fear of Dying.- 27. I Don’t Intend To Die This Year.- 28. Humane Treatment of the Terminally Ill.- 29. Family Tasks and Reactions in the Crisis of Death.- Author Index.