Author

Emily Newman

Date of Award

6-29-2015

Document Type

Undergraduate Capstone Project

Degree Name

Psy.D.

Organizational Unit

Graduate School of Professional Psychology

First Advisor

Nicole Taylor

Second Advisor

Judy Fox

Third Advisor

Teri Simoneau

Keywords

Dignity Therapy, Bone marrow transplant, Allogeneic, Psychosocial oncology

Abstract

Dignity Therapy is a relatively novel therapeutic intervention designed to address psychosocial and existential distress among those facing life threatening circumstances. This narrative psychotherapy approach invites patients to reflect and speak about issues that are most important to them and hopes to elicit feelings of purposefulness and autonomy, characteristics that are typically waning when nearing end of life. Dignity Therapy consists of a ten question semi-structured interview designed to integrate themes of accomplishments and sources of pride, things that may feel unsaid, and/or particular lessons or wisdom that the patient hopes to pass on to loved ones. The interview is transcribed, edited with the patient, and provided as a typed “generativity document” to the patient. Dignity Therapy has been empirically validated to lessen symptoms of existential distress in various terminally ill populations. In this pilot study, the dignity therapy intervention was implemented with five members of a novel patient population; those who have undergone an allogeneic blood or marrow stem cell transplant following a diagnosis of blood cancer. These participants engaged in the Dignity Therapy intervention and then filled out a brief feedback questionnaire. It is our hope that this pilot study will serve as a feasibility study to identify if this intervention will be acceptable and meaningful to this novel patient population.

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Extent

74 pages



Included in

Psychology Commons

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