Psycho-oncology includes your perceptions, behaviors and feelings, so let us begin with you. If you are reading this, it is likely that either you, or someone for whom you care, has GIST. If you or a loved one has GIST and any concern about its potential risks, as well as any kind of informed and rational mind to consider those risks and their possible consequences, then GIST will affect your thoughts, feelings, mood and self-image. It may also influence some of your everyday behaviors, relationships with others, as well as your perceptions of your own and your family's circumstances and situation.

The good news is that unlike a number of other malignancies, GIST rarely metastasizes to the brain. However, like all ongoing cancers that may or may not recur, GIST sarcomas inevitably spread to the mind - and sometimes do so quite pervasively. The inter-disciplinary study of how malignancies, their physical consequences, and perceived threats affect the mind, and what can be done to alleviate cancer’s mental, emotional and psychological burdens, is the professional sub-specialty of psycho-oncology. You may not like what I am telling you. I’m sorry about that.

If you don’t want to think together about our feelings and discuss them as fellow patients, then maybe our GIST psycho-oncology page is not for you. No problem, no coercion, no persuasion, no hard feelings, no regrets. We will love you anyway. You can leave now and remain in denial with a big capital “D” in the middle of your forehead, and with your head deep in the sand. But if you do leave, your GIST will still be there with you - in your mind, in the sand.

If, on the other hand, you merely wish to disagree, why, by all means, do so. Hearty welcome. Let us talk, discuss, and even argue if we must in this open forum – but reasonably and politely if we can, and at least in good faith if we cannot. There is room for all of us, and for all of our personal viewpoints as patients in psycho-oncology. We are not big on discipline, but we are inclusive and multi-disciplinary on our GSI website.

Similarly, psycho-oncology itself is multi-disciplinary. It involves not only medical-service providers like oncologists, psychiatrists and nurses, but social workers, clinical psychologists, various psychotherapists, as well as pastoral and other specialized counselors. In addition, you may find social science researchers and others who are professionally concerned with a wide variety of cancer’s human problems, including quality of life matters, and even end-of-life issues with their potential choices and ethical challenges.