Outpatient Counseling

Our counselors are experienced in structuring counseling sessions to meet the specific needs of each person. These counseling sessions are most often structured as individual or family sessions, but the Counseling Center also sponsors some group sessions for patients or family members who might benefit from working with others in similar circumstances.

Counseling Center staff may also refer patients to other mental health specialists for longer-term counseling. Our counselors are available not only as an outpatient resource, they are also available to patients during their hospital stays.

Services provided include: diagnostic assessment and treatment of psychiatric complications of cancer and treatments; crisis intervention; medical management of psychiatric drug therapies; cognitive behavioral therapy; alleviating distress and coping with the side-effects of treatment such as insomnia, fatigue, and pain.

Some symptoms of cancer and side effects of treatment -- such as pain, poor sleeping, and fatigue -- become worse when a person is anxious or depressed. Many patients find that counseling helps them manage these symptoms. Some people find that medication can help reduce distress and, indirectly, reduce the pain and fatigue they may be experiencing. An approach that combines both counseling and medication is often effective. To that end, our counselors work closely with Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Pain and Palliative Care Service.

The Counseling Center offers help to patients and their families who want to adopt healthy new behaviors during and after cancer treatment, such as exercising, eating healthy foods, and quitting smoking.

Our Smoking Cessation Program specializes in addressing the specific needs of cancer patients, cancer survivors, and their families who want to improve their health by quitting smoking. We understand the unique challenge of wanting to stop smoking while finding other ways to deal with the stress of cancer diagnosis and treatment and the fear of recurrence. We use a range of individually tailored methods to help each person find alternative, healthy ways to resist the craving to smoke, and to quit smoking permanently. We also welcome family members who want to stop smoking, as it may be easier to quit together.

Cancer treatments sometimes affect patients' ability to return to work or school. We can provide testing to evaluate cognitive function in both children and adults, and suggest interventions when needed.

Counseling Center staff members are constantly working to improve the care they provide and to improve the understanding of cancer patients' experiences. To that end, they have undertaken some groundbreaking research studies. The results of past studies at Memorial Sloan-Kettering led to the development of national guidelines for how to manage distress in cancer patients. (These guidelines are available for patients on the Web site of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.)

Current areas of research include cancer prevention, particularly in smoking cessation and genetic testing, and ways patients and their families can maintain and even increase a sense of meaning and purpose in life, despite cancer. Such research protocols are sometimes offered to eligible patients through the clinical trial process.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Counseling Center welcomes all cancer patients -- whether or not they are receiving care at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. For more information, or to make an appointment, please call:

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Counseling Center
641 Lexington Avenue, Seventh Floor (on 54th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues)
New York, NY 10022
646-888-0100