HUMAN SIDE OF CANCER by Jimmie Holland & Sheldon Lewis ($14)

11.95
HC: 0-06-6093042-X

In The Human Side of Cancer, Jimmie C. Holland, M.D., explores the broad range of emotions people with cancer and their loved ones experience from the moment of diagnosis through the treatment and its aftermath. For more than twenty years, Dr. Holland has pioneered the study of psychological problems of cancer patients and their families -- whom she calls "the real experts." In The Human Side of Cancer, she shares what she has learned from all of them about facing this life-threatening illness and what truly helps along the cancer journey. This book is the next best thing to sitting in Dr. Holland's office and talking with her about the uncertainty and anxiety elicited by this disease. And it is a book that inspires hope -- through stories of the simple courage of ordinary people confronting cancer.

Offering the latest scientific information about the mind-body connection and cancer, Dr. Holland dispels the countless myths surrounding this controversial subject, including the notion that a person with cancer is somehow to blame for getting the disease or for not getting better.

Dr. Holland disputes the current one-size-fits-all approach to coping with cancer, based on her experience that everyone has a unique way of coping, which should be respected. She also provides the latest information on "medicine that doesn't come in a bottle" counseling, support groups, meditation, and other coping strategies that can help. This book imparts Dr. Holland's message of common sense and caring.

The Human Side of Cancer provides practical and compassionate guidance for dealing with

A diagnosis of cancer and its uncertainties
Societal myths and beliefs that may make coping more difficult
Cancer treatment and its aftermath
Life after a cancer cure
Illness when comfort replaces cure as a goal
Issues for families, including grief

In The Human Side of Cancer, Dr. Jimmie Holland has opened up the Black box of emotional turmoil that reverberates in the minds of cancer patients and their families. This pioneer in psycho-oncology also provides helpful guidance in specific techniques of self-empowerment. Importantly, she takes the burden of the disease off the shoulders of the patients. Anyone touched by cancer, personally or in a friend or loved one should turn for help and comfort to this outstanding distillation of a lifelong professional experience with the emotional repercussions of cancer. Sidney J. Winawer, MD., MACG Author of Healing Lessons

Dr. Holland's book will be of invaluable help to anyone caught up in the saga of cancer--the people who have it, their caregivers, family, and friends. It is a clear, no nonsense, and above compassionate, guide that tells you all things you wanted to know but were too afraid to ask. Don't go to the doctor without it
- - Kathleen Chalfant, Actress

Once, Jimmie Holland told me many of these things and made my life more bearable. Now her extraordinary insights are available to everyone––a road map that makes a terrifying journey much less so. She is the bright light in the dark forest, warding off the monsters with wisdom and concern, easing the torture in our minds that comes from the disease in our bodies. If you have cancer, or care for a cancer patient, or simply want to understand how to talk to someone who's been diagnosed, I urge you to read this book. It will change your life.
- - Lynn Sherr, ABC News 20/20

For many years Dr. Holland has worked with knowing dedication in an effort to learn from patients struggling with cancer--and the result is a book that tells us of the great ordeal those individuals face, but also, of the wisdom they acquire in the midst of their suffering. Here pioneering psychiatric research and clinical work become something else, something special: a human witness to lives as they unfold with dignity as well as fearful stress.
--Dr. Robert Coles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Children in Crisis

Dr. Holland, in her inimitable combination of warmth, wisdom and compassion, speaks out from the printed page. She accompanies the patient and family through the uncharted experience of living with a life-threatening illness in all its facets - the sadness, the uncertainty, the hope. Unlike many books which promise hope through - in her words - "the tyranny of positive thinking," Dr Holland provides a sense of hope through her profound understanding of the human experience. Any individual or family confronted with cancer will find a gentle and sage companion in this book.
Barbara M. Sourkes Ph.D. Montreal Children's Hospital / McGill University