Allison J. Applebaum, PhD

I am the Director of the Caregivers Clinic, housed within the Memorial Sloan Kettering Counseling Center. This Clinic provides psychosocial support to cancer caregivers — family members and friends of patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering. For many, the stress of caregiving can easily become overwhelming and negatively impact one’s ability to perform this critical role. The purpose of the Caregivers Clinic is to help caregivers maximize their ability to provide care to their loved one with cancer while concurrently attending to their own self-care, needs, and other important responsibilities. In my work with individuals, groups, and families, I help caregivers strengthen their capacity to communicate comfortably and openly with the patients for whom they provide care, honor their responsibility to care for themselves, and recognize their potential for growth and resilience, and even benefit from this important role.

My research goals involve the development of psychosocial interventions for patients with cancer and their caregivers. I am particularly interested in understanding how we as humans make meaning of the cancer and caregiving experience, and how current empirically supported treatments may be adapted for effective delivery in the acute cancer setting. I am currently conducting research to understand how to best meet caregivers’ psychosocial needs while they face multiple competing responsibilities, and as a result have developed several brief psychotherapeutic approaches specifically tailored for caregivers. Additionally, I am investigating the unique experience of burden in caregivers of patients with particular cancer diagnoses and treatment regimens, such as patients undergoing bone marrow transplantations and patients with brain tumors. I am also very interested in how our current public policy landscape impacts the experiences of caregivers and how systems-level interventions, such as the establishment of medical records for caregivers, can facilitate improved care for families facing cancer.

I am a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the American Psychosocial Oncology Society, and the International Psycho-Oncology Society.