Counseling Women with Breast Cancer: A Guide for Professionals (Women's Mental Health and Development)

This comprehensive guide for mental health practitioners and medical professionals addresses the delicate issues surrounding breast cancer and the processes involved in emotional coping and healing. Unlike other works, this volume takes a practice-oriented approach, offering readers a review of the medical, psychological and social aspects of breast cancer. Using case studies that depict women from diverse backgrounds, this text focuses on current research, interventions, psychological assessment, and addresses the concerns of women. Students and practitioners alike will appreciate this engagingly written and informative book.

Merle A. Keitel is currently Professor and Director of Training of the APA-accredited doctoral program in Counseling Psychology in the Division of Psychological and Educational Services at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education in New York City.  Her primary teaching responsibilities are in the areas of individual counseling and psychotherapy and counseling theory and process.  Dr. Keitel takes pride in the accomplishments of the many doctoral students she has mentored over the past 30 years at Fordham University. She is the co-author with Mary Kopala of Counseling Women with Breast Cancer (Sage, 2000) and the co-editor of the first edition of the Handbook of Counseling Women (Sage, 2003). She has written numerous book chapters and articles on topics related to women’s issues and health psychology such as cancer, infertility and miscarriage, PCOS, and eating disorders. Dr. Keitel presents on these topics regularly at national professional conferences. She has been awarded the James C. Hansen Humanitarian award from the University of Buffalo, the Katherine J. Scanlon Award for “extraordinary contribution to Fordham University and to the field of Psychology”, and was represented in the Oral History of Feminist Psychologists (Division 35, American Psychological Association).

Mary Kopala is Professor Emerita at The Graduate Center and Hunter College, City University of New York.  She received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1987 and her Master’s of Education in Counselor Education in 1980 also from Penn State.  During her teaching career which spanned nearly 25 years, she taught master’s students in rehabilitation and school counseling, and doctoral students in counseling and school psychology.  She has worked as a clinician in private practice and at Georgia State University counseling center.  Previous to receiving her Ph.D., she worked with college students at Temple University’s career counseling center, with college and high school students at Drexel University in Special Programs and Upward Bound, with international college students at Penn State, and as a counselor in Penn State’s freshmen orientation program. She coauthored and coedited professional articles, chapters, and books, and she presented at numerous state, regional, and national conferences.  She also served in various administrative capacities, most recently as Executive Officer in Educational Psychology at the Graduate Center.  Since retiring, she has continued to contribute to the profession as a reviewer of articles, book proposals, and health psychology student papers.