[Music]

I’m Dilys Stinson and I’m a counsellor for an organisation called Cancer Counselling London.

Counselling is a place to be able to talk about your anxieties and fears,

problems that you’re worrying about

without having to worry that the person you’re talking to is going to judge you,

is going to talk about it with your friends or family.

Somewhere which is a confidential, supportive, safe space to talk.

People come for counselling when they have cancer or when they’re caring for somebody who has cancer,

at many stages along that very difficult journey.

They may come at the beginning when they’re really frightened of what’s to come.

They may come in the middle when they’re in treatment,

and they’re struggling with how to manage their life and the people around them.

People often come for counselling after the treatment has finished

because they’ve just had to get onto a path and stay there while they were being treated,

but once the treatment has finished they have time

to try and make sense of what’s happened to them and the way forward.

The kind of feelings somebody might be having that they feel they need to protect others from,

feelings of anger and resentment,

feelings of real isolation,

that nobody will understand the kind of things that are going on for them

and how frightened they are.

One of the things that I find in counselling which is really a major issue

is how people communicate with each other, or how they don’t.

And so it’s really important to think about what’s the best way for people to be able to listen

and to express themselves.

So for instance turn off the TV, don’t answer your phone,

sit down across from each other and give yourself the time and the space to be able to really listen

and hear what somebody is saying.

Time priorities are one the most difficult blocks to communication.

People think dinner’s always at 7 o’clock, I’m making dinner,

if I stop to talk with this person it’s going to make dinner late.

So one of the things I suggest to people is when they start to have a difficult conversation

and they’re doing something else is to say, 'Is this a good time for us to talk?'

Shall I stop what I’m doing? Or shall I do what I’m doing and then we can put aside some time later?'

It is really important that when you’re talking about very serious issues that you’ve got somebody’s undivided attention.

I think people find it quite difficult to talk about some of the very life threatening issues that come with a cancer diagnosis.

That if they talk about somebody dying, somehow it’s going to make it happen or make it more real at least,

and that I think is one of the things that a counsellor is able to help people do a kind of reality check on how that might be.

There are many issues that then are raised when people are post-treatment.

So there is the big one of everybody thinking that it’s all over for you,

whereas for a patient and their family there are still lots of concerns.

What will happen if it comes back?

And finding a way to live with that uncertainty is really difficult for many people.

It’s also your life is never going to go to back the same as it was,

you’ve have a life changing experience as well as a life threatening one.

And so finding your 'new normal' is a really difficult piece of work in the cancer journey.

If I were looking for counselling support then I would suggest that people went to their GP as a beginning,

because the GP may have a knowledge of local resources.

I certainly would call Macmillan because they have a really good database of the resources throughout the country.

Or people do an internet search which is very, very helpful.

From my experience counselling really helps people to pick up their lives,

to go back to the life that they want to live,

in a way that they want to live it and to feel that they can go forward with a very positive attitude really.

For information, help, or if you just want to chat

call the Macmillan Support Line on 0808 808 00 00 or visit macmillan.org.uk