[Sound of television in background]
I’m Dilys Stinson and I’m a counsellor for an organisation called Cancer Counselling
London. Counselling is a place to be able to talk
about your anxieties and fears, problems that you’re worrying about
without having to worry that the person you’re talking to is going to judge you,
is going to talk about it with your friends or family.
Somewhere which is a confidential, supportive, safe space to talk.
People come for counselling when they have cancer or when they’re caring for somebody
who has cancer, at many stages along that very difficult journey.
They may come at the beginning when they’re really frightened of what’s to come.
They may come in the middle when they’re in treatment,
and they’re struggling with how to manage their life and the people around them.
People often come for counselling after the treatment has finished
because they’ve just had to get onto a path and stay there while they were being treated,
but once the treatment has finished they have time
to try and make sense of what’s happened to them and the way forward.
The kind of feelings somebody might be having that they feel they need to protect others
from, feelings of anger and resentment,
feelings of real isolation, that nobody will understand the kind of things
that are going on for them and how frightened they are.
One of the things that I find in counselling which is really a major issue
is how people communicate with each other, or how they don’t.
And so it’s really important to think about what’s the best way for people to be able
to listen and to express themselves.
So for instance turn off the TV, don’t answer your phone,
sit down across from each other and give yourself the time and the space to be able to really
listen and hear what somebody is saying.
Time priorities are one the most difficult blocks to communication.
People think dinner’s always at 7 o’clock, I’m making dinner,
if I stop to talk with this person it’s going to make dinner late.
So one of the things I suggest to people is when they start to have a difficult conversation
and they’re doing something else is to say, 'Is this a good time for us to talk?'
Shall I stop what I’m doing? Or shall I do what I’m doing and then we can put aside
some time later?' It is really important that when you’re
talking about very serious issues that you’ve got somebody’s undivided attention.
I think people find it quite difficult to talk about some of the very life threatening
issues that come with a cancer diagnosis. That if they talk about somebody dying, somehow
it’s going to make it happen or make it more real at least,
and that I think is one of the things that a counsellor is able to help people do a kind
of reality check on how that might be. There are many issues that then are raised
when people are post-treatment. So there is the big one of everybody thinking
that it’s all over for you, whereas for a patient and their family there
are still lots of concerns. What will happen if it comes back?
And finding a way to live with that uncertainty is really difficult for many people.
It’s also your life is never going to go to back the same as it was,
you’ve have a life changing experience as well as a life threatening one.
And so finding your 'new normal' is a really difficult piece of work in the cancer journey.
If I were looking for counselling support then I would suggest that people went to their
GP as a beginning, because the GP may have a knowledge of local
resources. I certainly would call Macmillan because they
have a really good database of the resources throughout the country.
Or people do an internet search which is very, very helpful.
From my experience counselling really helps people to pick up their lives,
to go back to the life that they want to live, in a way that they want to live it and to
feel that they can go forward with a very positive attitude really.
[Announcer] For information, help, or if you just want to chat
call the Macmillan Support Line on 0808 808 00 00 or visit macmillan.org.uk