COPING with CANCER STRESS
An online course to help you reduce your anxiety -
and feel calmer and more relaxed

(Starts Wed 28th March - places still available)

 

Getting a cancer diagnosis can be a very difficult experience that affects people in many different ways. The impact can range from anxiety and depression through to fatigue and other forms of distress. And caring for someone with cancer can be equally challenging.

However there is much you can do to reduce the stress of cancer and improve your quality of life.

Our Coping with Cancer Stress online course will teach you effective and easy-to-learn techniques that can help make you feel in more control of your situation, help you reduce your anxiety and help you feel calmer and more relaxed.

Among the topics covered on the course are:

  • how self-help activities can make you feel more in control of your life

  • how to feel less helpless and scared

  • how to recognise sources of stress and deal with them

  • how to develop feelings of deep relaxation in your body

  • how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over your mind

  • how imagery can help you to influence your life and health

  • the importance of seeking support from your friends and family

  • how to decide what your priorities really are.

THE FORMAT OF THE COURSE

The Coping with Cancer Stress Online Course follows the format of Level 1 of the onsite Healing Journey courses, which consists of four weekly sessions.

We’ll be using some easy-to-use technology to deliver the content and create a sense of community, as I’ll explain below. Don’t worry if you’re concerned about your IT skills. We’ve got someone on our course team who will be there to help you with any technological difficulties.

Who the course is for

The Online Course is for people with cancer and relatives, carers and friends of people with cancer. If you come in the latter category, you can do the course on your own without needing to participate with the person you care for.

There may be a few health professionals or therapists on the course who want to experience the methods for themselves. But they won’t just be observers and will be expected to participate fully.

It’s suitable for people who have never done any meditation, relaxation or other self-development courses. It’s also very suitable for people who have done those things before and who want to go a bit deeper or who need encouragement to practise regularly.

While the pilot course was limited to people from the UK, we're opening up this course to English speakers from around the world, although we still expect that the majority of participants will be from the UK.

ACTIVE OR PASSIVE?

The goal of the Coping with Cancer Stress course is to show you that, whatever the state of your illness or the illness of the person you are looking after, there are activities you can do that will make you feel more in control of your life.

We aim to show you that you don’t have to feel at the mercy of uncontrollable events. You can start to take a more active role in your life that can increase your feelings of well-being and your overall quality of life.

Format of the course

The course is made up of various elements.

 
Online webinars. Each week Ella Titman will be giving a one hour webinar which you will be able to view on your computer. We recommend that people see it live but, if you can’t make it or want to go through it again, each week’s webinar will be available for viewing on the course website.
   
 
Forum. The confidential forum will provide an opportunity for you to ask questions about anything you don’t understand, get help if you’re stuck doing any of the home exercises and get to know your fellow course participants. Don’t worry if you’ve never used a forum before as they’re very easy to use and we’ll provide help to get you up to speed.
   
 
Weekly notes. We've divided the course manual into weekly notes that cover the content of each week’s webinar. That means you’ll be able to familiarise yourself with the main ideas before you attend each webinar.
   
 
mp3s. We’ll be providing mp3s for many of the home exercises, including the meditation and relaxation exercises. You can listen to them from your computer. However, if you want to listen to them elsewhere, you can also burn them onto a CD or transfer them to your mp3 player.
   
 
Telephone mentoring/support. We’re offering each participant 20 minutes of telephone mentoring/support with Ella Titman.

However, if you ever feel you would like more time with Ella, this can be arranged.

The recorded webinars, weekly notes, forum and mp3s will all be available on the private Coping with Cancer Stress course website. You will be given your own individual password to access it.

ALASTAIR CUNNINGHAM

The Coping with Cancer Stress course is part of the Healing Journey programme, which was developed by Alastair Cunningham. Until his retirement, Alastair was a Professor at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, one of Canada’s highest civilian honours. The citation described him as “a groundbreaking researcher and a man of immense compassion” as well as “a pioneer and world leader in this field”.

In 2007, Professor Cunningham was the joint winner of the first Dr Rogers Prize, which is awarded biennially to people who have made a significant contribution to the field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Canada.

He has written three books, including The Healing Journey which has a UK edition, and has authored or co-authored many scientific papers.

The Healing Journey programme was introduced into the UK by Paul’s Cancer Support Centre in January 2008 and all five levels have been put on at the Centre several times since then.

Technology

Although it is an online course, we don’t expect participants to have advanced computer skills. (Actually, what we found from the first course was that many participants became much more IT-confident as a side-benefit of participating in the course.)

You will need access to a computer at home (either a PC or a Mac) and, preferably, a broadband connection. You will need to be happy about visiting and navigating simple websites so that you can attend the webinars (or view recorded versions), access the course notes and mp3s, and participate in the course forum.

Your computer needs to have an in-built or attached microphone in order for you to speak during the webinars. You also need to check whether you need speakers or headphones in order to hear the webinars.

If you’ve never participated in a forum before, we provide a tutorial which will show how easy they are to use.

You will also need to have the free Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer so that you can view the course notes. We’ll tell you where to download the software if you don’t already have it on your computer.

One of our team, Francis Miller, will be on hand to deal with any technology queries and to help you through any difficulties you may be having.

System requirements - PC-based participants will need Windows 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server while Macintosh-based participants will need Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or newer.

If you have any questions about any IT aspects of the course, do email me and we can answer any queries you have.  

 

Importance of home exercises

While it's important to go through the learning materials for the course (the pdf notes and the online webinars), we find that the people who get the most benefit out of the course are those who do the home exercises as well.

So we strongly recommend that participants should be willing to be spend 10 minutes or so a day for at least five days a week doing a home exercise, like one of the meditation or relaxation exercises.

What we find is that when people start doing a short amount of meditation or relaxation regularly, they start seeing the benefits and then often want to do more than ten minutes each day.

 

Overall time commitment

The webinar will take an hour a week and together with reading the course notes, listening to the mp3 exercises and doing the home practice, participants should expect to spend about 3 hours a week on the course.

However, it’s important to say we won’t be putting pressure on you in any way. We fully understand that there may be difficult weeks when your energy is low and you are not able to do the home practice or view the webinar.

What’s nice about the online course format is that everything will be available to you on the course website so it will always be easy to catch up.

 

The Coping with Cancer Stress Course Team

Ella Titman

Ella is the course leader. She will be delivering the webinars and answering most of the questions that come up on the forum.

She trained as an integrative counsellor, and is a yoga teacher and yoga therapist. She started as a volunteer yoga teacher at Paul’s Cancer Support Centre and later worked as a counsellor here. She has also led onsite Healing Journey courses.

Currently in her work, she focuses on offering people holistic support through the Healing Journey and through teaching yoga.

 

In addition, we have three other people who will be able to answer specific questions in the forum in their specialities.

Patrick Browning

Patrick is a clinical hypnotherapist with a practice in Kensington, London. Many of the issues which people bring to a hypnotherapist, namely fears, how to deal with stress, emotional issues, motivation about goals, letting go of past feelings, managing thoughts, using imagery, and finding ways to change are all particularly relevant for people with cancer, and are all addressed on the Healing Journey.

He has been seeing people with cancer and cancer carers at Paul's Cancer Support Centre since 2005. He has also been a facilitator for Levels 1 and 2 of the Healing Journey from its first introduction to the UK.

Petra Griffiths

I am the Development Co-ordinator of Healing Journey UK and Director of Paul's Cancer Support Centre, which is based near Clapham Junction in London.

My interest in the Healing Journey grew out of my own cancer experience in my early thirties, when I found the use of relaxation and visualisation very helpful, in addition to the orthodox treatments. I also have recent experience of supporting a close relative with cancer. I have been running organisations in the cancer information and support field since the 1980’s, and have done four years’ training in transpersonal psychology.

I have a particular interest in holistic spirituality and am available to discuss any questions or concern you have about the interface between the psychological and the spiritual.

I have led two whole Healing Journey courses and has been able to see the HJ sessions in action in Toronto.

Beverley van der Molen

Beverley is a Macmillan Information & Education Officer, running a joint service for Paul’s Cancer Support Centre and St George’s Healthcare Trust in Tooting. She was the first community-based Macmillan Cancer Information Officer in the UK.

She is author of the book Taking Control of Cancer, which was published in 2003, and her main interest is in providing the right information and support to help people with cancer and their families deal effectively with the illness.

In the 1990’s she introduced Gertrude Grahn’s Learning to Live with Cancer courses into the UK as a joint project between St George’s and Paul’s Cancer Support Centre. She has also co-led Levels 1 and 2 of the Healing Journey Programme.

She will be available to discuss cancer information questions in the forum.

 

As we don't want anyone to be put off by technology problems, we've also included someone on the course team who can deal with IT issues.

Francis Miller

Francis is our technology adviser.

He’ll be available in the forum and via email to help you with any IT problems you may be having with your participation in the course.

 

Course dates

The first webinar will start at 7.30pm on Wednesday 28th March and there will a webinar at the same time each Wednesday evening for the following 3 weeks (up to 18th April). You have the choice of being on the live webinar or viewing a recording.

Our private website for course participants will be opened on 21st March so people can read the notes for the first week’s webinar and start getting to know each other in the forum.

We will be keeping the forum open for contributions at least a month after the end of the course and participants will have access to the forum, the pdfs, the mp3’s and the recorded webinars for at least 12 months after the end of the course.

If you live outside the UK, please click on this Time Zone Converter to work out your local time for these webinars.

 

What's Next

Many of the participants who finish the Coping with Cancer Stress course go on to the 8-week Level 2 Developing Your Self Care Skills to extend their skills and deepen their experience.

Level 2 introduces participants to areas such as:

  • journaling

  • meditation

  • letting go of resentments

  • developing a relationship with one's inner healer

  • finding out more about what one really wants in life

  • the spiritual journey (which is designed to be appropriate for people of different faiths and of none).

The Level 2 online course will start on Wednesday 2nd May, two weeks after the end of Level 1.

 

Results from previous Level 2 participants

Obviously the results people achieve from participating in Levels 1 and 2 differ. And part of this is down to how much effort a person puts into engaging with the content and doing the home exercises.

Here are some of the results that people have reported after being on Levels 1 and 2:

  • feeling more relaxed

  • being better able to cope with anxiety attacks

  • having a sense of self-development and feeling more contact with one’s inner self

  • being able to appreciate life more

  • dealing better with difficult situations through using skills learnt on the courses

  • feeling less alone and more understood

  • being more accepting of oneself

  • being helped to find inner peace

  • getting ‘unstuck’ by realising things are moveable, changeable and improvable

  • finding a space to think about ‘self-care’ and one’s own needs, after looking after someone who has had cancer for the previous year

  • being able to view one’s situation from different perspectives and, as a result, feeling generally more relaxed

  • understanding the impact that thoughts have on one’s emotions

  • feeling part of a community

  • feeling supported by the structured nature of the programme

  • understanding that there are more varieties of ways to a better life living with cancer than expected.

 

Sign up for the course now

We are asking participants for donations instead of having a course fee. This means that those involved in one course help to make it possible for future courses to be offered to others.

We have a suggested level of donations, as follows:

        • £32 (about US$41.15/CAN$49.85) - for people in full-time work or with ample resources

        • £16 (about US$24.55/CAN$24.95) - for people in part-time work

        • £8 (about US$12.30/CAN$12.45) - for people dependent on benefits etc.

However we don't want anyone not to attend because of financial issues so, if you are not in a position to pay anything, please email me here to reserve your place.

And obviously if you are able to make a larger donation to support the Healing Journey Programme, this would be gratefully received.

After you have booked, we will also need you to fill out the booking form, which can either be emailed or sent back to us.

There are various ways of donating.

By Paypal

Please note you can donate via PayPal with your debit or credit card even if you don't have a PayPal account.

 

By cheque

Please send in a cheque with your booking form. (Cheques should be made out to Paul’s Cancer Support Centre and sent to Petra Griffiths, Paul’s Cancer Support Centre, 20-22 York Road, London SW11 3QA.)

By debit/credit card

Please ring me on 020 7738 1333 to give your card details (unfortunately we can’t accept American Express payments). If you live outside the UK, you’ll probably find it easier to use your credit or debit card via Paypal using the button above.

 

For those who wish to continue onto the 8-week Level 2 course Developing Your Self Care Skills, the suggested donations for it are as follows: £64 for people in full-time work or with ample resources; £32 for people in part-time work; and £16 for people dependent on benefits etc.

 

Any questions?

If you have any questions whatsoever about the content of the course, what it will involve or anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You can either email me here or phone me on 020 7738 1333.

 

We’re very excited about putting on our second online Coping with Cancer Stress and we’re looking forward to starting it in March.

 

Petra Griffiths

 

FEEDBACK FROM PREVIOUS ONLINE COURSE PARTICIPANTS

"I found the programme very interesting and insightful. I also found it extremely helpful in helping to support myself with certain aspects of profound changes that are occurring in my life.

"I used the relaxation, meditations and the inner healer to good effect. I also found the session on forgiveness and letting go of resentments very helpful in allowing me to understand the process as constituting a healing choice that we can make for ourselves. It helped me to put into context certain behaviours and roles that I had assumed in my past but also to realise how I have moved on.

"Even though I was sitting alone at home I felt connected, and part of a bigger and very friendly group. It was much more user friendly and very personally supportive than I had imagined would be possible from such a online course. I think this was in great part to do with Ella as the facilitator but also the fact of being able to interact with such easy immediacy through the medium of the webinar. It was such a privilege to hear and share with other’s experiences."

 

"I think one of the most important things is the support and sharing with other people on the same quest. It is lovely to feel a whole person and an equal with others and to feel sympathy with them and from them, to feel part of a group. This is completely different from the standard healthcare experience where one is reduced to nothing, a number, an outsider and a recipient rather than a participant, the effect of which I think from my personal experience is as detrimental to health as treating people humanely is helpful.

"I liked the way the course was non-judgmental, and able to be adapted by us to our own needs - we can take from it what means something to us, and maybe save for another time things that didn’t immediately seem to work or offer something.

"I also liked the way things that I initially thought might not be helpful for me surprised me and were helpful, and also the course's holistic approach to life and its challenges - the way it wasn’t about 'fixing cancer' but about helping the person make sense of cancer as a part of their life."

 

"Ella clearly knew her material and she delivered it very well indeed. She is a lovely person and this added to it. She built up the course week by week very well, adding in something new every week, which helped us get to grips with one thing at a time."

 

All three comments come from participants who completed both Levels 1 and 2.

 

 

Back to main Healing Journey website