ABSTRACT
Cancer patients must be regarded as people under a special and severe form of stress. Cancer is commonly perceived as an always-fatal and particularly loathsome disease, not "clean" and uncomplicated like, for example, the frequently more fatal heart disease. Reactions to cancer and its therapy, then, must be seen as a sequence of related events which proceeds from the first perception of a sign of illness, to the climax of hospitalization and treatment, and then to convalescence and cure, or to recurrence and death. Each cancer patient's behavior is designed to prevent, avoid, minimize, or repair injury—not merely to a part of the body, or to the psyche, but also to his basic adaptive patterns and all their social implications. The problem of emotional adaptation to cancer and its treatment is inseparable from the larger problems of human communication.
