Surviving testicular cancer: sexuality & other existential issues

The thesis deals with the psychological aspects of ‘sexuality after testicular cancer’, where my collegue, the physician dr. Van Basten formerly predominantly described the physical-biological aspects of this subject. Testicular cancer is a type of male genital cancer, usually diagnosed between about 18-35 years of age, so in the prime of adult life. The disease has a favourable prognosis: now a days about 90% of the patients has a ten-year survival. Still, the emotional impact of the disease may be very intense. To describe the psycho-sexual consequences of testicular cancer, a diversity of methods was used. In Part I of the thesis, a meta-analytic review of literature was performed (chapter 2), and questionnaires were applied in a retrospective (chapters 3, 4 and 5) and a prospective study-design (chapter 6). In Part II qualitative in-depth interviews were used (chapter 7) and a case-report concerning a psychotherapy-process with a testicular cancer patient and his partner was performed and described (chapter 8). The thesis ends with a broader theoretical study concerning the coping-paradigm, cancer as a psychotrauma and cancer as an existential task (chapter 9).