We offer emotional containment before breast cancer

Our team handles emotions such as sadness, anxiety and fear that usually appear in patients after receiving a diagnosis for this disease. Creating solid and friendly support networks may be a platform of hope.

Before a diagnosis of breast cancer, the Citizen Council for Safety and Justice in Mexico City handles emotions such as depression, fear and anxiety, both in patients and in people close to them, enabling a place to offer them attention and safe keep their mental health.

Within the framework of Worlds Day Against Breast Cancer, the organism offers its free emotional containment service 24/7 to protect the mental health of women who fight to defeat this disease, through the Family and Women’s Line and the Trustworthy Chat, both at 55 5533 5533.

“Assimilating the diagnosis is similar to grief. It’s necessary to normalize contact and expressing emotions in order to protect mental health, while receiving the oncological treatment. Promoting self-esteem and body consciousness helps women come through this challenge and it becomes a platform of hope: that’s what the Council’s team of psychologists’ service focuses on,” Salvador Guerrero Chiprés within the framework of World Day Against Breast Cancer.

The organism offers immediate Psychological First Aid through its attention channels and it follows up on patients and relatives through virtual or in-person therapies at the Emotional Recovery Centers at its four seats – Cuauhtémoc, Iztapalapa, Azcapotzalco and Benito Juárez- always with a gender perspective, sensitivity and closeness.

In the cases the organism has worked on, they’ve noticed that most patients experience uneasiness, anxiety and fear but, paradoxically, there’s also space for hope when they receive a sensitive and empathic accompaniment.

“It’s fundamental for women to feel emotionally accompanied in coping therapies, during the treatment and recovery processes. Our service contemplates these therapeutic phases,” Cyrene Rivera Smith, one of the 110 psychologists of the Citizen Council said.

The organism’s psychology team works to help patients give a new meaning in the process of fighting against the disease, creating a new body concept and strengthening their relationship with family members and support networks.

According to INEGI, during 2019 there were 15 thousand 286 new cases of this type of cancer in Mexico, among the 20-year old population, 167 in men and 15 thousand 119 in women. While the World Health Organization deems that one out of 12 women suffer from this disease at one moment in their lives.

Between 2020 and September 2021 the Citizen Council has offered 66 thousand 786 psychological attentions before different emotional problems; 70% of requests are made by women in relation with anxiety, depression, loneliness or diseases.

The organism reminded that it works 24/7 for free in a confidential manner at the Family and Women’s Line and Trustworthy Chat 55 5533 5533. For the population who lives or works in Mexico City, there are four seats located at the mayoralties of Cuauhtémoc (Amberes 54, Colonia Juárez), Iztapalapa (Luis Hidalgo Monroy 100, Barrio San Pablo), Azcapotzalco (Morelos y Pavón 33, Azcapotzalco Centro) and Benito Juárez (Tintoreto 39, Santa María Nonoalco).