Caring for your mental health is just as important as caring for your physical health. If you are living with ovarian cancer or supporting someone who is, emotional wellness plays a vital role in your quality of life. This library was created to offer mental health support for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers.
Mental Health Support for Ovarian Cancer Survivors and Caregivers
Expert-led mental health resources
Each resource offers insight, validation, and expert advice. The content is designed to help you manage stress, trauma, grief, and emotional challenges that often come with an ovarian cancer diagnosis. Whether you are newly diagnosed, in treatment, navigating survivorship, or caring for someone else, you will find supportive tools to help you through.
Coping skills
Coping with ovarian cancer can feel overwhelming at times. These resources offer simple, helpful strategies to manage anxiety, stay grounded, and take care of your emotional health.
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How to Create a Coping Self-Care Plan
Learn how to build a personalized coping self-care plan that strengthens your body, mind, and spirit. This video offers practical mental health support for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers to manage stress and improve daily well-being.
Coping as a Continuum
Coping looks different for everyone, and all coping matters. Teresa Quinn explains how to release judgment and make small, positive shifts toward long-term emotional health.
Feelings Wheels as Coping Tools
Discover how the Emotion-Sensation Wheel can help you name and understand your feelings. This tool supports survivors and caregivers in recognizing emotions with clarity and compassion.
Externalizing Anxiety Tools
Learn a gentle way to externalize overwhelming feelings and create space to breathe. This video provides mental health support for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers coping with anxiety.
3 Quick Tools for Distress
Try three fast coping techniques—Box Breathing, Snake Breathing, and a Mini Body Scan. These simple tools can bring calm during moments of stress, overwhelm, or difficult conversations.
Communication
Ovarian cancer affects relationships with family, friends, and care teams. This category focuses on communication tools that can help you express your needs and build understanding.
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What are Boundaries?
Explore what boundaries really are and how they protect emotional health. This video offers practical communication tools for survivors and caregivers during the ovarian cancer journey.
Setting Boundaries for Survivors
Learn how to set healthy boundaries with medical teams, loved ones, and family. Teresa Quinn provides concrete guidance to help survivors express their needs.
Tips for Supporting a Survivor
Supporting someone with ovarian cancer can be challenging. This video shares compassionate advice for caregivers, friends, and family to provide meaningful support.
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How to Find a Therapist Through Psychology Today
Discover how to use Psychology Today to find the right therapist for trauma, grief, or anxiety. This guide offers step-by-step support for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers seeking mental health resources.
The Hand Brain Model for Understanding Trauma
Understand how trauma affects the brain with this simple model. Teresa Quinn explains how the survival system works and how awareness supports healing.
Tips for Supporting a Survivor
Learn how stress and trauma impact the body’s Window of Tolerance. This video offers survivors and caregivers insight into managing emotional and physical responses.
Meditations and visualizations
Meditation can be a powerful way to find calm and presence during difficult moments. These guided practices are designed to help you relax and reconnect with your body and breath.
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Beach Visualization
Take a calming mental trip to the beach with this guided practice. Teresa Quinn helps you release stress and create a safe, peaceful space for healing.
Body Scan (Standing)
Ground yourself by gently focusing on your body from head to toe. This standing body scan supports relaxation and reduces stress.
Container Visualization
Visualize placing your worries and emotions into a safe container. This tool helps survivors and caregivers create space from overwhelm and breathe with ease.
Forest Visualization
Step into a peaceful forest with this grounding meditation. Teresa guides you to connect with calm and feel supported in the present moment.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Release tension by tightening and relaxing your muscles with slow, intentional breathing. This practice supports stress relief and overall relaxation.
Sunlight Relaxation Visualization
Imagine warm sunlight washing over your body, easing stress and tension. This guided visualization brings comfort, calm, and peace.
Grief and loss
Grief is a natural part of the cancer journey. It can include the loss of health, identity, routines, or relationships. These resources offer mental health support for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers who are navigating grief in any form.
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Grief 101
Learn the basic principles of grief and why every experience is unique. This video offers survivors and caregivers validation and support as part of mental health support for ovarian cancer.
Grief in Your Body
Understand how grief shows up physically through fatigue, tension, or brain fog. This video helps normalize the full-body experience of loss.
The Ball and the Box Analogy for Grief
Explore a simple visual analogy that explains how grief changes over time. This tool offers comfort for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers coping with loss.
How to Create a Grief Ritual
Discover how grief rituals can help you honor your loss while staying connected to healing. Teresa Quinn explains how to create a personal, adaptable ritual.
Coping with Holidays and Anniversaries
Get practical tools to navigate grief during holidays, anniversaries, and milestone dates. This video provides compassionate support for emotionally charged moments.
About Teresa Quinn, LCSW
Teresa Quinn is a licensed clinical social worker with many years of experience supporting people affected by cancer. As part of the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, she offers compassionate mental health support to ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers across the country.
You can learn more about Teresa and her work here:
Grief and Loss Support with Teresa – A Beacon of Hope at NOCC
FAQ: Mental health support for ovarian cancer survivors and caregivers
What mental health challenges do ovarian cancer survivors and loved ones face?
Ovarian cancer survivors may face anxiety, depression, fear of recurrence, grief, and trauma related to diagnosis or treatment. Mental health support for ovarian cancer survivors can improve emotional well-being and help them navigate life after diagnosis.
Are there mental health resources specifically for ovarian cancer caregivers?
Yes. Caregivers supporting someone with ovarian cancer often experience stress, emotional fatigue, and grief. Mental health support for ovarian cancer caregivers is available through caregiver-specific videos, peer support groups, and resources offered by the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.
Can meditation help people cope with ovarian cancer?
Yes. Meditation and guided visualizations can reduce stress, improve sleep, and ease emotional distress. These tools are part of the video series created to offer mental health support to people affected by ovarian cancer.
What is medical trauma, and how does it affect ovarian cancer survivors?
Medical trauma is the emotional and psychological impact of experiencing serious illness, difficult procedures, or life-altering diagnoses. It can cause anxiety, numbness, and difficulty processing care. Mental health support can help address the effects of trauma and offer strategies for healing.
Is it normal to feel grief even if I or my loved one survived ovarian cancer?
Yes. Grief is not limited to loss of life. Survivors and caregivers may grieve lost time, changes in health, fertility, or future plans. Mental health support for ovarian cancer includes resources that help individuals explore and understand grief in all its forms.
Who is Teresa Quinn?
Teresa Quinn, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker who has extensive experience working with cancer survivors and caregivers. She leads the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition’s mental health support video series, offering guidance to both survivors and caregivers.
Discover more support on our YouTube channel
The National Ovarian Cancer Coalition YouTube channel is filled with helpful videos for survivors, caregivers, and families. Explore mental health support, coping skills, guided meditations, survivor stories, and resources created to bring comfort and connection.
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