Counseling Individuals With Life-Threatening Illness

Life-threatening illness is not only a medical crisis; it is a psychological, social, and spiritual crisis as well. Also, serious illness affects not only the patient, but the patient's family. Therefore, the two major premises of this book are that care in life-threatening illness must be holistic, and it must be family centered.

Doka presents an insightful, comprehensive guide for counselors, social workers, and health care professionals, as they assist clients experiencing a serious illness. The book builds on a model developed by the author, based upon earlier work by Avery Weisman and E. M. Patterson.

Doka's model presents illness as a series of phases:

• Prediagnostic: individuals may decide how to handle troubling symptoms or to take certain diagnostic tests
• Diagnostic: centered on the existential crisis posed by the diagnosis
• Chronic: individuals must cope with the disease and treatment
• Recovery: acknowledges that even when individuals survive an encounter with life-threatening illness, there are still considerable issues that must be resolved
• Terminal phase: individuals deal with the inevitability of death

  In his discussion of each phase, the author delineates specific tasks for patients to perform and the issues they must adapt to. He also presents strategies for counselors and health care professionals to use with individuals in each phase of illness.