Perceptual Style and Breast Cancer: A Caregiver’s Perspective
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Co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory
When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, our lives changed in ways neither of us could have anticipated. Suddenly, appointments, treatments, decisions, and uncertainty became part of our everyday experience.
As one of my friends put it, battling this type of cancer is "like pushing the pause button on your life for about a year."
Throughout this experience, I discovered that what I knew about how people perceive and interpret the world became an important part of how we navigated the challenges before us. Our understanding of Perceptual Style Theory™ helped us communicate, adapt, and support one another during an extraordinarily difficult time.
The experience was so significant that I felt it was worth sharing, particularly from the perspective of someone supporting a loved one through cancer treatment.
How Perceptual Style Helped Us Communicate During Treatment
How can a psychological theory of perception help someone navigate the experience of cancer treatment? Medical care involves far more than procedures, medications, and appointments. It also involves people communicating under difficult and sometimes emotionally overwhelming circumstances.
For us, understanding Perceptual Style Theory™ (PST) provided a useful framework for approaching these interactions. In particular, it helped us:
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Find ways to communicate beyond the professional distance that can sometimes characterize interactions between medical professionals, patients, and caregivers.
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Understand how to interact with particular members of my wife’s treatment team to get the information and care we needed without alienating them.
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Recognize which one of us might be better suited to communicating with particular members of her treatment team. Our different Perceptual Styles, our understanding of how others appeared to approach communication, and the circumstances of each interaction helped guide those decisions.
The Emotional and Social Challenges of Caregiving
We also discovered that navigating cancer involved far more than medical appointments and treatments. The emotional, social, and practical responsibilities of caregiving became an important part of our daily lives. These included:
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My role as her caretaker as she recovered from each treatment
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The changing nature of our interaction through each round of chemo, then radiation, then surgery
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Coordinating a support network of friends and family who must be communicated with, but from whom she must also be ‘protected’ from at times
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Finding ways to take care of myself so that I could continue providing support without experiencing caregiver burnout.
Finding Strength Through Understanding
According to John Lennon, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” My wife and I discovered the truth of this when the doctor uttered one short sentence: “That’s breast cancer.” It turned everything upside down. We found ways to manage and, in many cases, found the positive in a very difficult process. I have always maintained that PST was not just an interesting theory, but one with profound ‘real life’ applications.
There is nothing more real life than what we’ve just been through. As I look back on all that has transpired since last fall, I know that without our understanding of PST it would have been a very different and much harder experience.
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About Dr. Gary M. Jordan, Ph.D.
Gary Jordan, Ph.D., has over 35 years of experience in clinical psychology, behavioral assessment, individual development, and coaching. He earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology – Berkeley. He is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. He’s a partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., a consulting firm that specializes in helping people discover their true skills and talents.
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