A social–cognitive processing model of emotional adjustment to cancer.

Cancer diagnosis and treatments can profoundly and, sometimes, irrevocably alter people's lives. Cancer treatments are invasive, painful, and often create long-term negative side effects. Yet despite the dread, discomfort and dysfunction associated with this disease, some individuals are able to maintain or quickly reestablish their precancer emotional equilibrium. Understanding this adjustment process is a primary goal of psychologists and health care providers who conduct psychosocial interventions with cancer patients. By examining natural processes and predictors of adjustment in cancer patients, we can find clues to designing effective interventions. This chapter applies a social-cognitive processing theory of adjustment to stressors to explain how the social context of recovery influences emotional adjustment to cancer. The theory also is applied to understanding who benefits from psychosocial interventions for cancer and why.