Jennifer Kilkus, PhD, is a health psychologist who specializes in psycho-oncology, an interdisciplinary field that addresses the psychological, physical, social, and behavioral aspects of cancer. She is part of the Psycho-Oncology Program team at Smilow Cancer Hospital that provides individual psychotherapy and behavioral medicine services, a cognitive behavioral skills group, and medication management, with a goal of giving cancer patients strategies for managing both mood and physical symptoms resulting from cancer and cancer treatments.
“I was always interested in psychology,” Kilkus says. “In fact, my high school memory book has a question that says, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I answered, ‘A psychologist!’” A few years later, while she was in college, her grandmother died from cancer. “Her experience and that of my family further developed my interest in how those with cancer navigate their disease and treatment,” she says.
It's always a privilege to connect with people during some of the most difficult times of their lives, Kilkus says. “I am consistently humbled by the resilience shown by those navigating this often-devastating disease,” she says. “I’m grateful to be able to provide space to process the challenging and sometimes conflicting emotions that can come up for people following a diagnosis and to be able to offer strategies that can help make it more manageable.”
An assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, Kilkus is working on a pilot project that involves using digital neurotherapy, a fairly new application that involves neuroplastic strengthening to improve cognitive dysfunction that has helped some older adults with depression and cognitive impairment. “We hope to explore whether this technology can also help people with cancer who are experiencing cognitive and mood challenges following their treatment,” she says. She is also involved with research into the effectiveness of a “fear of recurrence” therapy group for young adult cancer survivors.
