Looking after your emotional wellbeing is part of your recovery
APC has specialist psychology services available to all patients from diagnosis through to recovery. Psychology services are accessible for everyone - if you need someone to talk through your experience, or support and guidance to cope with treatment, side effects, life changes, and facing difficulties.
Sessions with your psychologist can help you approach treatment and recovery with positive strategies in place.
APC psychologists also offer weekly meditation sessions at the clinic. Meditation and mindfulness can help patients with pain management, and maintaining a sense of well-being throughout treatment and recovery.
Mindfulness is a form of mental training that has proven benefits for the management of pain, stress and illness to the enhancement of all aspects of our lives.
For patients in the grip of illness, mindfulness can lead to an increased tolerance of disease and an enhanced quality of life, even in the face of pain and/or declining health.
APC offers meditation sessions with one of our psychologists. Sessions will vary, but each will include a period of guided meditation, a period of movement meditation, a period of silent meditation, and a brief opportunity to ask questions or make comments.
Q&A with APC Psychologist Max Rutherford
The first challenge for anyone diagnosed with a serious illness is to figure out what impact it will have on their health and well-being. When first diagnosed, patients receive lots of information about their condition but they don't always have the chance to figure out what it all means for them personally. By contrast, sessions with a psychologist represent an opportunity to think about and process what's been learned and to figure how to relate to and cope with what's happened.
Psychological therapy won't ever change the reality of what's happened but does give people an opportunity to think about what's happened and to discover ways of relating to it in the hope that they can continue to flourish as human beings despite whatever adversity they are faced with.
The best way to approach a session of psychotherapy is to see it as a conversation where the subject of conversation is your own subjective experience. In therapy, as in everyday life, the way we solve problems, the way we understand things, is through talking. If we have a problem at work we arrange a meeting; when doctors and scientists want to delve into a particular topic they have a conference; before governments respond to events they get together to discuss what to do; and when individuals are wrestling with personal challenges some of them choose to see a therapist.
Psychologists are people with whom we can discuss the things that really matter, the things that are closest to our hearts, and sometimes the things that we might not be able to discuss with anyone else. So you don't have to be mentally ill to see a psychologist, you don't even have to have a problem: psychological therapy is for anyone who wants to think about something that's important.
Prostmate is our online support tool that allows you to take control of your treatment, and access on the spot support and reliable information. We encourage you to sign up to Prostmate - it’s free - to access free psychological support information.
Find out more