This practical, hands-on book offers a broad range of skills to overcome the problems medical clients face with disease onset. The author has expanded his Cognitive Coping Therapy (CCT) model of care into the medical arena, and identifies 3 distinct phases in the treatment protocol: Crisis, Consolidation, and Normalization. Each phase constitutes a distinctive set of tasks and each task a set of coping skills. This book details how to implement these skills, with sample case illustrations throughout. Special attention is given to specific illness trajectories and their stresses.

Kenneth Sharoff, PhD, has been practicing psychotherapy for thirty years and is currently in private practice in the Phoenix, Maryland, area. He is the originator of cognitive coping therapy, reviewed as "the most important contribution in the development and maturing of cognitive behavior therapy in the past twenty years."

PART I: Coping Skills in Health Care

1. Coping Skills Approach
2. Strategies and Skills
3. Phases in Adaptation

PART II: Coping Skills for Crisis Phase

4. Assimilation of Suffering
5. Discomfort and Frustration Management
6. Identity Management
7. Self-Support Training

PART III: Coping Skills for Alienation Phase

8. Uncertainty Tolerance
9. Bitterness Disposal Training
10. Body Accommodation and Disfigurement Neutralization

PART IV: Coping Skills for Consolidation Phase

11. Meaning-Making
12. Limitation Management

References
Index