Abstract

Breast cancer is a debilitating and many times fatal disease that will affect approximately 215,990 women in the United States alone this year. Treatment for breast cancer can involve many physically and psychologically straining features. The illness perception theory states that individuals form illness representations to make sense of health threats and illness. These representations contain a number of individual, specific attributes about the illness identity, and cause, time-line, consequences of, and cure/control of the illness. Many women who have experienced breast cancer have also been found to be keeping their thoughts inside. Thought suppression has been linked to many negative consequences, such as anxiety and depression. To investigate, a writing paradigm was introduced to breast cancer patients as survivors. An expected link between expressive writing and a decrease in thought suppression was examined, yet not found to exist. Themes and case examples are provided.

LLU Discipline

Experimental Psychology

Department

Psychology

School

Graduate School

First Advisor

Michael Galbraith

Second Advisor

Hector Betancourt

Third Advisor

Mark Haviland

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Level

M.A.

Year Degree Awarded

2005

Date (Title Page)

6-2005

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Breast Neoplasms -- psychology; Women -- psychology; Adaptation, Psychological

Type

Thesis

Page Count

vii; 54

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

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