Personal experience of cancer coaching for those deemed terminally ill will be discussed as a method of helping people to life to their fullest for as long as they can.
Some of the elements of coaching using positive psychology that will be discussed are:
1: Strengths work. Helping people identify their strengths and use them in novel ways can be challenging but not impossible. As people with terminal illness become progressively more ill it is vital they focus on what gives them strength.
2: Mindset. Terminal illness often means patients focus on dying rather than living until they die. Shifting this bias is essential to flourishing.
3. Coping styles and personality. The implications of understanding personality types such as introversion and extroversion and how these impact the family system's coping strategies will be presented.
Lastly: this model of work is now being extended into the field of working with people with chronic neurological illness. Is this a road map for working within more disease areas? Plans for a novel research project at UCL, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London will be proposed and discussed.