CALM Therapy

CALM therapy provides a structured and supportive framework that helps patients cope with the complex practical and existential challenges of advanced cancer, promoting psychological well-being and a better experience of living with their condition.

Undergoing CALM (Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully) therapy provides significant benefits to patients, primarily by reducing psychological distress— including depression, anxiety, and death anxiety— and improving overall quality of life.

Key benefits include:

Reduced Psychological Distress: Patients experience a significant decrease in symptoms of depression and anxiety. It can also help prevent the onset of major depression in patients who are not depressed at the start of therapy.

Alleviated Death Anxiety: CALM therapy is effective at reducing fears and distress related to dying and death, helping patients to face mortality with a greater sense of peace.

Improved Quality of Life: Patients generally report an enhanced quality of life, which includes better physical, emotional, and social functioning.

Enhanced Sense of Meaning and Purpose: The therapy provides a supportive space for patients to explore and re-evaluate their values, life goals, and sources of meaning, which helps them live more meaningfully despite their illness.

Better Symptom Management: It helps patients manage physical symptoms (such as cancer-related fatigue and sleep disturbances) and improves their ability to communicate effectively with healthcare providers about their care and treatment decisions.

Strengthened Relationships: Patients are able to address changes in self-concept and personal relationships, resolving relational tensions and improving communication with close family members or caregivers, who are also invited to participate in sessions

Improved End-of-Life Preparation: Patients feel more prepared for the end of life, which can include practical planning (e.g., wills, finances) and achieving a sense of life closure.

Fostering "Double Awareness": The therapy helps patients maintain a balance between engaging in life and acknowledging and planning for the progression of their disease and its eventual end.

Individual Counseling Support

for Caregivers

Watching your loved one go through a cancer diagnosis can be devastating, even more so when you are the one providing personal care as the disease progresses. Confusion, guilt, dread, exhaustion, burnout— the emotions are raw, overwhelming, and can cause real harm to your mental and physical health at a time when you need your strength the most.

The Eir Centre offers a variety of counseling and therapy services for caregivers, with our without other integrative wellness programs.

Advanced Care Planning for End-of-Life

Living with advanced cancer, as with any chronic disease, is stressful for both the patient and their loved ones. Waiting for appointments and test results, pressured decisions around treatment, sudden loss of independence, and planning for the end of life…it all takes a toll.

With so much of the disease course being unpredictable, the first step you and your loved ones can take is to develop a plan in keeping with your heartfelt goals, values, and wishes.

Advance Care Planning at The Eir Centre entails one or more appointments with a staff physician to discuss your plan, explore and review your wishes, and make internal and external referrals where appropriate.

Advance Care Planning is an insured service under OHIP.  

 Death Doula Services

All too often a person’s final hours of life revolve around clinical interventions like opioid medications or removal of a breathing tube. While medical care is important, the company of loved ones, cultural rites, and spiritual needs matter at the end of life.

A Death Doula offers compassionate guidance and support through life’s final transition. By providing a comforting environment, practical help, and a calming presence, the doula helps patients and their loved ones navigate the end of life with dignity, peace, and meaning.

The Doula will complement the care provided by medical and hospice/home care teams.

Engaging a Death Doula begins with a consultation appointment at The Eir Centre, followed by private arrangements for attendance at the home or other place where the death is expected to occur.