Psychology, men and cancer

摘要

The term cancer has terrifying connotations. It can refer to evil, a social disease or to a collection of over 200 medical pathologies. Under the 1997-2010 Labour administrations, psychologists cautiously welcomed the Department of Health's 2007 Cancer Reform Strategy (Jarrett, 2008). The strategy was unique for devoting a subsection to gender (p.90-91) and highlighting the issue of greater cancer morbidity and mortality in men compared to women. Nevertheless, a key concern for psychologists was that the strategy failed to explicitly identify roles for them. Here, we address the core issue of the relationship between masculinity and cancer and explore what psychology can contribute to the understanding and treatment of cancers specifically across the spectrum of the male population.