Abstract
Abstract: This study aims at disclosing different stages of the psychological process which lung cancer patients pass through after they are notified of their cancer, in order to see if these stages are connected with the stages of the disease. From patients' own words and behaviors, recorded by themselves in their treatment reports, those which may reveal their psychological stages after notification are extracted and dissected in terms of the division of 'psychological states' defined as Phase I, II and III on the Massie & Holland model. As a result, three points come to light. Firstly, the disease stages, presence or absence of treatments or metastasis, affect psychological states. In the second place, “shock” and “denial” in Phase I and “distress”, “anxiety” and “fear” in Phase II last longer in patients on Stage IV than in those on Stage II. And lastly, immedately after the notification “efforts for adaptation” of Phase III appear more remarkably in patients on Stage II than in those on Stage IV.
