Healing Journey Level 2: Skills for Healing provides a deeper experience of support and coping strategies that reduce stress and includes small group discussions about personal circumstances and

Healing Journey Level 2: Skills for Healing provides a deeper experience of support and coping strategies that reduce stress and includes small group discussions about personal circumstances and needs.? 

This level provides a deeper practice of the techniques learned in Level 1, and builds on these skills by teaching meditation, journaling, discovering your inner healer, letting go of resentments, spiritual aspects of healing and supportive group discussion. 

In this program, you will build on what you learned in Level 1 by: 

• Meditation 
• Journaling 
• Discovering your inner healer 
• Letting go of resentments 
• Understanding spiritual aspects of healing 
• Having supportive group discussions 

“I was not sure what I would find. This group has helped me feel hopeful on ways forward and able to begin to make positive and solid decisions that will help with the changes needed to be made to live life in a mindful and positive way. I was truly stuck and concerned about the impact of the changes for myself and my husband.” 

“Everyone who experiences cancer should take the Healing Journey. Whether it all works for you or you use the skills and techniques that you choose, there is no possible way to leave without knowing you have tools and knowledge to make your quality of life better than it was when you began.” 

What to expect 

This program runs for eight weeks, with weekly sessions that are 120 minutes. 

Common benefits 

• Increased overall well-being and ability to cope 
• Improved pain management 
• Reduced anxiety and depression 
• Increased sense of control 
• Reduced isolation through the creation of connections with other patients or caregivers 
• Emotional wellness 
• Improved health outcomes 

Related research 

Since 1982, the program has been developed and researched at a large cancer treatment and research centre. Published research on the Healing Journey, together with the research of other scientists, shows that using these methods regularly can significantly diminish anxiety and depression, restore a sense of control, and relieve symptoms like fatigue, nausea, and pain. 

There is also published evidence that when people with advanced cancers get very involved with helping themselves psychologically and spiritually, they may live longer than medically predicted. Many factors are involved with these findings, and not all are well understood. Although extended life cannot be guaranteed, ongoing research will hopefully one day shed more light on this possibility. 

• It is common for a diagnosis of cancer to challenge the spiritual wellbeing of cancer patients and caregivers. As such, spiritual care has been identified as an important element of supportive care in cancer (Connolly & Timmins, 2021; Puchalski et al., 2019). 
• Healing Journey is a practical program designed to address spirituality and existential issues in people living with cancer, and it is inclusive of all religions and belief systems. An early version of this program showed promise in improving mood, self-efficacy, quality of life, purpose in life, and spirituality in cancer patients (Cunningham et al., 2005). Since then, more recent research has shown that meaning centred psychotherapy programs for cancer survivors similar to Healing Journey can improve quality of life, psychological distress, psychological well-being, and mental adjustment to cancer in both the short and long term (Breitbart et al., 2015; da Ponte et al., 2021; Holtmaat et al., 2020; Jafari et al., 2013; Rosenfeld et al., 2018; van der Spek et al., 2017).  One recent study has also shown that a meaning centred psychotherapy program for cancer survivors was cost effective (van der Spek et al., 2018).