The Helping Professional's Guide to End-of-Life Care: Practical Tools for Emotional, Social, and Spiritual Support for the Dying

by E. Alessandra Strada PhD, FT, MSCP

Overview

Nearly half of people at the end of life will receive hospice care, but few psychologists, nurses, physicians, chaplains, and hospice workers have been trained specifically to recognize and address the psychological, social, and emotional issues that may arise in patients who are dying. Patients in the midst of advanced terminal illness may experience a variety of distressing emotions, and may feel anxious, frightened, regretful, or desperate. This guide was created specifically to guide helping professionals of all kinds through the process of working through patients’ psychological issues to allow them peace and comfort in their final moments.

The Helping Professional’s Guide to End-of-Life Care clarifies the spiritual and emotional care that patients need and presents an evidence-based approach integrating cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), transpersonal psychotherapy, hypnosis, mindfulness, and guided imagery to help patients manage emotional distress at the end of life. Through case conceptualizations and detailed treatment planning guidance, readers learn to formulate comprehensive assessment and treatment plans for patients and gain skills that will help them manage the emotional intensity of this work. This secular, professional treatment model can be applied to patients of any religious or spiritual background. The book also addresses integrating the patient’s therapeutic team with the medical team, addressing the emotional needs of friends and family of the dying, crisis intervention for suicidal patients, working with clients on psychotropic medications, and how helping professionals can manage their own emotions to become more effective clinicians.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608822010
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	01/02/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

E. Alessandra Strada, PhD, FT, MSCP, is an adjunct associate professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and adjunct faculty in the post-doctoral psychopharmacology program at Alliant University, San Francisco. She is a staff psychologist at Mendocino Coast Hospital and a fellow in thanatology. In addition, she is a former assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and attending psychologist in the department of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, where she developed and directed the psychology fellowship in pain, palliative, and hospice care. Her clinical work and research focus on psychological care in advanced illness, end-of-life, grief, bereavement in the palliative care setting, and chronic pain. She has worked extensively to promote stress management and burnout prevention for clinicians. Her treatment approaches include integrative use of psychodynamic, existential, and insight-oriented approaches with cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnosis, guided imagery, mindfulness, and meditation. She lives in Northern California.

Table of Contents

Preface v

Acknowledgments vii

1 The Journey through Illness 1

2 Developing a Healing Presence 17

3 Working Effctively with the Medical Team 33

4 Meeting with the Patient and the Family 51

5 The Experience of Grief in Patients Who are Approaching Death 71

6 The Multidimensional Nature of Pain 87

7 Anxiety 111

8 Depression 135

9 Exploring the Spiritual Domain 157

10 When Death is Imminent: Supporting Patients and Caregivers 173

11 After the Death: Supporting the Mourning Process 191

12 Maintaining Personal and Professional Well-Being: The Meaning of Self-Care 207

References 227

Index 245

Interviews

E. Alessandra Strada lives in New York City, NY.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Darrell Owens, DNP, MSN, MS (University of Washington Medicine)
Description: This skills-based guide for effective and compassionate psychosocial care provides a comprehensive approach that integrates cognitive behavioral techniques, mindfulness, and guided imagery to help manage emotional distress associated with advanced illness and patients at the end of life.
Purpose: The book is designed and developed as a practical clinical companion for helping professionals in various disciplines working with patients who are approaching death, and their families. The goal is to enable readers to develop a "felt sense" of several clinical situations that commonly occur in the context of advanced illness and end of life, emphasizing an integrative approach to care. This is a much-needed book. While there is a plethora of palliative care books, the specific focus on psychosocial issues, written from the perspective of a psychologist/thanatologist, make this book unique. The author successfully meets the objectives, and provides an excellent resource for readers in a variety of disciplines including nurse practitioners, physicians, social workers, therapists, and spiritual care counselors.
Audience: Although written for professionals who work with people and their families with advanced and terminal illness, the book could serve as a resource for students, as well as for experienced and novice clinicians from both medical and psychosocial disciplines.
Features: The book covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from developing a healing presence to professional well being and self care. One of the most valuable chapters focuses on the experience of grief in patients near death. Detailed discussions about preparatory grief, including the associated opportunities and challenges, provide readers with an excellent and in-depth resource. This chapter also does an exceptional job of discussing demoralization, and differentiating between preparatory grief and depression. For experienced clinicians, the chapter on the multidimensional nature of pain is basic, and likely to be less useful than other chapters.
Assessment: As a medical/palliative care provider, I found this book exceptionally useful. The fact that the author is a psychologist and that the book is written from a psychosocial perspective provides experienced clinicians with an opportunity to examine common issues at the end of life from a nonmedical viewpoint. There are other books on palliative care and advanced illness, but none written in this easy-to-read and easy-to-apply format.

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