David M. Kaplan

Human Responses to Cancer: An Ecological Approach

For those of us who have had personal or professional experience with cancer patients and their families, it is clear that this diagnosis precipitates a number of serious psychosocial problems. These problems may be resolved, mitigated, or aggravated as the result of a complex process of adaptation involving the patient, family and the health care system. The thesis of this presentation is that the problems associated with cancer, if treated early as problems of adaptation, will respond to interventions specifically designed for them. Problems of adaptation are likely to become ingrained personality difficulties if they are not treated promptly with appropriate brief interventions.

Early Interventions for Families with Chronically Ill Children

The initial response of the family to the diagnosis of a chronic disease is the focus of this presentation because the origins of many of the long term psychosocial problems associated with chronic disease can be traced to this early phase. For the same reason, early interventions designed to deal with these problems at their inception are critically important.

A Useful Guide to Families with Juvenile Diabetes: Discussion of Dr. Sargent’s Paper

It is a pleasure to discuss John Sargent’s paper, because he offers the health professional a very useful guide to understanding families who are confronted with juvenile diabetes and because he provides a clear basis for some forms of intervention which those families require. The author recommends to us a particular theoretical approach to chronic illness, an approach I find compatible with my own experiences and thinking--and that’s pleasing too.

A Child's Parent Dies: Studies in Childhood Bereavement. By Edna Furman. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974. 316 pp.

This study of twenty-three children who suffered the death of a parent during childhood seeks to understand the psychological impact of bereavement on the young and to offer concrete suggestions for helping children cope with their loss.