Effectiveness of a group therapy in breast cancer: Development of maladaptive emotions

Abstract

The emotional state of women with breast cancer may vary over time, depending on the physical and psychosocial difficulties that can be found throughout the disease, and that may continue once the process of cancer treatments finished. When the patient expects to recover his everyday life, negative emotions such as fear of relapses or feeling depressed, often remain. The objective of this longitudinal study is to know how these maladaptive emotions progressed, when participating in group therapy aimed at improving the quality of life. The final sample consists of 38 women with breast cancer in disease-free interval. The results indicate that the so-called "emotional distress" improves over therapy, although by many patients negative emotions emerge more during the therapy than at the beginning. There is a greater improvement in the aspect of recovering the motivation and enthusiasm for doing something (p<0,01). We also observed a diminution of anger, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties and fear. We conclude that the long-term (8 months) therapy has been shown effective to help emotional adjustment.