Blended Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Reduce Recurrence Fears

Hi Moderators,

This is actually a really great tool you guys are educating about. Bravo small dutch study people for recognizing this quality of life issue and doing something about it! Kudos to you guys for posting it And leaving it up for all this time with no replies. Well done I say again.

I would in my experience like to say that just a plain old KAISER (or other) DBT education class/group as is offered for people in recovery from trauma say, or substance abuse, or any recovery will benefit enormously the taker and probably even more than this simple multi-pronged approach but following the approach. The DBT class that I took was something that allowed and allows me to hold two contradictory ideas in your/my head at the same time and fall neither to one nor the other exclusively.

Google definition:

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. Its main goals are to teach people how to live in the moment, cope healthily with stress, regulate emotions, and improve relationships with others.

They're using it for trauma now and it works. And let me tell you a cancer diagnosis alone is TRAUMATIC, not to mention the therapies and the looming survival rates etc. Especially if you already have a traumatic event you're recovering from. We are wise to protect our mental health too. Untreated trauma is worse than treated trauma. That all. And it's useful for cancer if you have the time

For example as applied to cancer recurring : monitoring one's self as the first line of detecting recurrence is crucial and necessary. But also allowing yourself to hope dream and want that it will not. Accepting that you may recur and accepting that you may not recur at the same time.

So we do not put our head in the sand. We are constantly vigilant, yet we live! Most people achieve this through some sort of minor public service, meditation, and other tools to allow emotions to exist temporally and pass through us and also to allow thoughts and ideas to do the same. Learning how to practice the skills to realize when you are too far in one state, the emotional, or too far in the other, the thinking mind. And to temper one with the other to achieve the wise mind.

Any way, I learned about it at Kaiser, and I did a drop in class whenever I had a chance for a full year. SO maybe 25 or 30 classes. I did it in association with a traumatic event from two years ago. and it is a neat trick or tool, or way of life that can most certainly be used to fight depression, anxiety, denial, and protect against developing substance abuse. if you can imagine one educational class series lasting 6 months or a year maybe (with drop in options instead as well which is what I did) - one class doing all that!

Small group setting, tons of online and printed educational material. Videos, worksheets etc as well as group therapy. One on one sessions with the class leader is almost de rigeur, I think I did two to 3 one on ones. But tons of chatting in the hall while passing and elevator check-ins as well as a few drop-in group session when it was just me or myself and one other.

It's a good thing too, cause I'm metaPlastic. So a tough road for recurrence tightrope walking. Would be super easy to put head in sand. I should try and get back over there over break, but that's all filled up with cancer therapy and well surgeries at this point are planned for every break. from work! I'll make the time! It's too important to brush up on my skills!

Fracking out and to BED! (Long day with the boob reconstruct surgery today)