A map of what is available, and who each part is for
Support after cancer treatment is not one thing. This page lays out everything that exists here, from free reading through to the two paid programs, with no pitch attached.
Most people conclude there is nothing, because nobody ever showed them otherwise
The usual experience after treatment is that support is mentioned once, somewhere near the end, at a point when almost nobody is in a state to take it in. After that it goes quiet, and the reasonable conclusion is that whatever existed has now finished.
The other problem is proportion. The system is built to respond to crisis, so if you are functioning well enough not to worry anyone, nothing arrives. Not being in crisis is not the same as being fine, and there has historically been very little in between.
So this page is flat on purpose. Everything is listed, including the free things and the things that are not ours, and nothing here is trying to move you up a ladder.
The right support is the one that matches the state you are actually in.
Five things, from free to paid
The first three are free. Each one describes who it tends to fit, so read them and see which sentence sounds like your week.
The Weekly Check-in
Free, by email, weeklyThis tends to fit people who want to understand what is happening before committing to anything at all. The Weekly Check-in is an email from Michelle, a senior clinical psychologist working in psycho-oncology, on the psychology of life after cancer treatment. It arrives once a week, it costs nothing, and you can leave whenever you like.
Sign up further down this pageThe Cancer Rollercoaster community
Free to joinThis tends to fit people who have finished treatment and want to work out what is actually going on. Joining is free and opens two video series, the Survivorship Blueprint and the Fear After Cancer Reset, plus free live sessions with Michelle and a way of understanding which pattern is closer to your own experience.
Join the communityNotes from Michelle
Free, weekly, and the conversation is inside the communityThis tends to fit people who want the writing and the discussion rather than just the writing. Notes from Michelle is a weekly piece published here on the site, and the conversation about each one happens inside the community, where people say what it brought up for them and Michelle answers. Reading is free and open to anyone. Joining in means joining the community, which is also free.
Read Notes from MichelleThe Golden Ticket
$37 a month or $370 a year, cancel anytimeThis tends to fit people who are functioning and quietly changed. Back at work, back at the dinner table, and half a step outside their own life. It is a monthly membership holding twelve modules on the things that linger after treatment, a live call with Michelle each month, and her presence in the space every week.
Read about the Golden TicketCalm After Cancer
$497, or two payments of $250This tends to fit people whose day is being organised by fear of recurrence. The checking, the scan anxiety, the reassurance that never holds for long. It is an eight-week program on how the fear pattern works and the evidence-informed skills that interrupt it, with one video lesson and workbook released each week.
Read about Calm After CancerThe difference between the paid programs, said once and plainly
This is where people most often pick the wrong one, so it is worth being direct about it.
The Golden Ticket, when life has changed shape
- Life looks the same and reads completely differently
- You are functioning, and something about you has changed
- Fatigue, cognitive fog, work, intimacy, family, identity, all of it changed and most of it undiscussed
- You are not so much frightened as no longer quite fitting your own life
- You want something ongoing rather than a course with an end
Calm After Cancer, when fear is running the day
- Fear of recurrence is organising your day
- Checking, monitoring, Googling, reassurance-seeking
- Scan anxiety, and relief that never lasts
- Exhausted and alert at the same time
- You want to understand the mechanism and learn specific skills
If you cannot tell, that is common and it is not a problem. Join the free community, where working that out is exactly what the first part is for, and decide later or not at all.
Things that are not inside The Cancer Rollercoaster, but are sometimes the answer
Nothing inside The Cancer Rollercoaster is therapy, and none of it replaces therapy. That is a decision about what this is, not a comment on what individual work is worth. Michelle is a clinical psychologist and does see people individually. It simply happens in her practice rather than here.
So if individual psychological care is what you actually need, here is where to look, including in places that have nothing to do with us.
Your treating team
Many cancer services have a psycho-oncology contact, a social worker, or a psychologist attached. It is worth asking directly whether yours does, because it is not always offered.
Your GP and a Mental Health Treatment Plan
In Australia, a GP can prepare a Mental Health Treatment Plan, which gives you a number of Medicare-subsidised sessions with a psychologist each calendar year. It is an ordinary appointment and worth booking a long one.
Cancer Council 13 11 20
Free, staffed by health professionals, and useful for practical questions as well as psychological ones. They can also point you to local services you would not otherwise find.
A psychologist in private practice
Worth looking for someone with cancer experience specifically, because the psychology of survivorship is its own area and general practice does not always cover it. The Australian Psychological Society's Find a Psychologist directory lets you filter by area, and your GP or treating team may know who locally works with cancer.
Michelle's own practice
Michelle sees individual clients through her private practice, separately from everything on this page. It is not part of The Cancer Rollercoaster, it is not what any of the programs here lead to, and mentioning it is a matter of not sending you away empty-handed rather than a pitch. Availability is limited and it is not the right answer for everyone.
If things are acute
Lifeline is available on 13 11 14, any hour. If you are in immediate danger, call 000. If something has shifted quickly, contact your treating team rather than waiting for the next scheduled appointment.
Reading this on behalf of someone you love
A fair number of people who find this page are the partner, the adult child or the close friend, doing the searching because the person it concerns is not up to it or would not think to.
Two things are worth knowing. The first is that the gap after treatment is real and well documented, so if you have noticed that something is off while everyone else has moved on, you are probably right. The second is that the most useful thing is usually language rather than solutions. Most people in this stage cannot describe what is happening, which makes it very hard to ask for anything.
Everything on this page is readable by you. The Weekly Check-in and Notes from Michelle are the two easiest places to start, and there is no requirement that the person you are worried about joins anything, or even knows you are reading.
There is nothing here built specifically for families and carers yet. It is on Michelle's list and it matters to her, and when it exists it will be on this page.
You do not have to work out which one before you begin
The free community is where you can work out which pattern is closer to your experience, so it is the sensible first move for almost everyone, including people who are fairly sure they want one of the paid programs.
You make an account. It takes about a minute and it is free.
You are shown a way of understanding which of the two patterns is closer to your own experience.
From there you get both video series, live event access, and a clear view of what else exists if you want it.
Nobody contacts you. Nothing is automatically charged. You can look around without joining in.
Free to join. Leave whenever you like.
Not ready for any of that
Completely fine. The Weekly Check-in is a free email from Michelle, once a week, on the psychology of life after cancer. Reading for a while before doing anything else is a perfectly sensible way to go about this.
Free, one email a week, unsubscribe in one click. One field to fill in, and it is separate from joining the community.