Effectiveness of Passive Muscular Relaxation and Guided Visual Imagery Psychotherapy on the Management of Cancer Pain

The world is in the process of experimenting, verifying, and exploring the possible breakthrough in the treatment of different types of Cancer. A number of treatment methods are unfolding with their own locked-up merits and demerits (Atlihan-Gundogdu et. al., 2020). The increased rate of cancer all over the world, and the related concerns of cancer patients have become part of the global healthcare discourse, and the management of cancer pain experienced by the patients is one among them. It is not only the physical but also the psychological aspects of the pain which has to be tapped into, in order to find a solution for the same (Katz & Jay, 1984). Passive Muscular Relaxation and Guided Visual Imagery Psychotherapy are two major psychotherapeutic methods that are expected to have a significant impact on the management of cancer pain. The present study thereby tried to quantitatively understand the effectiveness of both these psychological interventions among a group of cancer patients from Kerala with the help of a dependent sample t-test which compared the pain score of patients measured using the McGill Pain Questionnaire before and after the intervention among the experimental and control groups. The study concluded that Passive Muscular Relaxation and Guided Visual Imagery Psychotherapy bring about a major decrease in the cancer pain experienced by patients when they are provided together.  It also makes a note that the effectiveness of these psychotherapies does not seem to have an impact in the case of female patients. Limitations and further explanations have been discussed further.