David Spiegel, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science at Stanford University School published a paper in The Lancet in 1989 that suggested group psychotherapy for women with metastatic breast cancer prolonged survival. This has led to rapid growth of cancer support groups and debates of the effect of such therapy on cancer patients.
Spiegel and colleagues attempted to replicate the earlier study in a new trial by randomly assigning 125 women with advanced breast cancer into two groups : one that received educational literature and the other received educational literature and weekly group psychotherapy. They found no difference in the overall survival between the two groups, but said that there were psychological benefits in other ways. Read more...
The study "Effects of Supportive-Expressive Group Therapy on Survival of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Randomized Prospective Trial" will be published in the September issue of Cancer.
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