Counselling for people living with cancer or chronic illness

More than the medical side

When you are diagnosed with a serious illness, everyone tends to focus on the medical side: the treatment plan, the next scan, the test results. Somewhere in all of that, the question of how you are, not your body but you, can get lost.

You are far from alone in this. Macmillan Cancer Support estimates that almost 3.5 million people in the UK are living with cancer, and that nearly three in four of them have emotional concerns such as worry, low mood or loneliness. People with long-term physical conditions are also two to three times more likely than the general population to experience mental health problems.

What you might be feeling

Maybe you feel shock, fear, or anger at your body. Maybe there was relief at finally having a name for symptoms that had been dismissed. Perhaps you are grieving the health you had, the plans you made, or the person you were before.

Many people find they feel worse after treatment ends, just when everyone expects them to feel relieved. Mixed feelings after treatment, and worry about the cancer coming back, are very common. With a chronic illness, losses can keep coming, and each new limitation can bring its own grief. And if your illness is invisible, you may be tired of hearing that you “look fine”.

You may also find yourself protecting the people around you, putting on a positive face so that they don’t worry, and carrying your own fears alone.

How counselling can help

Therapy can give you somewhere to stop coping for an hour. You don’t have to be positive or brave, or protect me from how frightened, angry or exhausted you are.

Together we can explore the feelings you have been holding back, the grief that can come with illness, how your sense of who you are has changed, and the strain illness can put on relationships. Counselling won’t change the medical picture, but it can help you live alongside it with a little less weight.