| Abstract: |
(from the chapter) The brief history of psycho-oncology is interesting for contemporary review because it has, over 30 years, produced a model in which the psychological domain has been integrated, as a subspecialty, into the disease-specific specialty of oncology. As such, the field today contributes to the clinical care of patients and families, to the training of staff in psychological management, and to collaborative research. Although the development of psycho-oncology occurred primarily over the last quarter of the twentieth century, it is crucial to understand the attitudes of society toward cancer and toward mental illness (including psychiatric comorbidity and psychological issues in medical illness) because they still impact on contemporary attitudes, albeit in an attenuated form today. Internationally, they continue to present barriers to optimal psychosocial care and research. This chapter explores the history of psycho-oncology with attention to the barriers arising from longstanding beliefs about cancer and mental illness that produced difficulties in the development of the psychosocial and psychiatric care of the medically ill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved). |
