No abstract

Numerous studies showed that cancer significantly increases the risk of developing depressive and anxious symptoms. It has been shown that self-esteem is an important psychological resource and is associated with many health behaviors. Furthermore, the vulnerability model of low self-esteem, which has received strong empirical support, highlights that low self-esteem is a real risk factor in the development of depressive disorders. This article aims at providing an overview of the involvement of self-esteem in the psychological adjustment to cancer. After briefly reviewing the literature, we suggest that its implication in the development of depressive disorders and its association with coping strategies and social support in cancer patients justify the consideration of self-esteem in oncology psychological care, especially in young adult patients and those with significant physical impairment following treatment.

Introduction: Self-esteem is central to human well-being, quality of life, and mental health. Therefore, it is important to propose preventive and therapeutic techniques to deal with decline in self-esteem. Different interventions have been proposed and their efficacies have been validated. However, they present certain constraints such as a cognitive and/or emotional cost, which limit some clinical applications. Method: Based on contributions from cognitive, social, and clinical psychology, we propose to test the efficacy of a new technique for self-esteem enhancement using brief lexical associations and mental visualization (six sessions of five minutes) for a stimulation of episodic and semantic self-perceptions. Results: Comparing the Lexical Association Technique to a control technique and using a double-blind pre-post design, two studies show the efficacy of this new technique on global self-esteem in two samples of students (nStudy1 = 36; nStudy2 = 89), as well as a sustained effect up to 5 days after the technique is stopped. Discussion: The mechanisms underlying the efficacy of this technique are discussed. Further studies are needed to precise the clinical applicability of the Lexical Association Technique on patients.