COACHING THROUGH Coaching is not currently commissioned for patients on the NHS and Fiona Stimson volunteers on a team of coaches who specialise in supporting cancer patients and their families. She is also part of a PhD study being conducted in conjunction with The British Psychological Society to determine cancer coaching standards at The Fountain Centre, a charity within The Royal Surrey Hospital. A cancer diagnosis Many people describe the experience of learning they have cancer as feeling that their world had stopped in that moment. They describe the ‘petrifying’ fear of not knowing what is going to happen, facing surgery and treatments is ‘traumatising’ and levels of fear & anxiety can hit an all-time high. Coaching and the cancer journey Coaching helps cancer patients and their families from diagnosis and treatment to living with, and beyond, cancer, including metastatic disease. Coaching aligns holistically with conventional treatment and other therapies to support and empower patients by being heard and understood. It offers time and space for them to express their feelings without judgement or advice, helps them to build strength and courage, to develop a greater understanding of themselves and their situation and create inner resourcefulness and resilience. Patients can feel many things including a loss of control, acceptance difficulty, anxiety, body confidence issues, loss of identity, fear of the future and survivorship guilt. It’s important to simply ‘be’ with whatever comes up during the coaching process and empathy, kindness and compassion are a key part of the process, alongside an appropriate dose of humour. Positive outcomes through coaching Removing limiting beliefs ‘my mum died of this so I will too’ and similar beliefs can be helped with NLP and other techniques which are used to enable the patient to think and manage in a different, more balanced and positive way.
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