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Author, Speaker, Psychologist, Advocate. Caregiving scientist. Speaking inquiries: allisonapplebaum.com
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#oncoballet#cancercommunity#nationalfamilycaregiversmonth#movementasmedicine#danceforhealing#cancersurvivorship#healingthroughmovement#survivorshup#danceheals
Recent posts
How can we better care for caregivers? 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒
Today, over 60 million Americans provide essential care for loved ones, including children, older adults, and family members with special needs. These caregivers are critical to our health system—yet many lack the support needed to stay healthy and financially secure themselves.
During Aspen Ideas: Health, experts and advocates discussed the societal changes needed to prioritize caregiving in the U.S.. Learn more at the link in bio! #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth
25 Nov 2025
The overlap between my personal and professional caregiving experiences has had a profound impact on me. Taking care of my Dad while leading the Caregivers Clinic at MSK underscored the challenges faced by the 53 million U.S. family caregivers, and how my professional work was only scratching the surface of addressing their unmet needs. Experiencing the complexity of caregiving in the setting of Lewy body disease while leading support for cancer caregivers highlighted commonalities and differences in the experiences of caregivers based on illnesses, disabilities, and treatments. Facing the financial toxicity of caregiving and navigating the Medicaid system underscored the overwhelming ways public policies shape caregivers’ experiences. Enduring repeated waves of anxiety, trauma, and anticipatory grief standing by my Dad’s side and feeling invisible in the healthcare systems where he received care was eye opening.
I knew long before my caregiving journey ended that I would want to do more, and I knew once I had moved past the intensity of my grief, that it would be time to do more. Now is that time. I’m thrilled to share that I’ve joined the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a Professor in the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and as the Director of the newly established Steven S. Elbaum Family Center for Caregiving! The Elbaum Center for Caregiving includes research, clinical care, training, and advocacy efforts aimed at addressing the needs of caregivers of patients with all chronic and life-limiting illnesses. One of our primary goals is to help healthcare systems nationally develop sustainable support programs for family caregivers. It is an incredible honor to lead a robust group of colleagues, trainees, and advocates to advance caregiving science and help provide much needed support to caregivers nationally and worldwide. I am immensely grateful to our donors and my new department for bringing my 15-year vision for a home for caregiving science to fruition and for recognizing that, just as palliative care was two decades ago, addressing the needs of family caregivers is the next urgently needed change in U.S. healthcare.
27 May 2025
I am so grateful to @songwriterpodcast for the opportunity to share my caregiver story, speak about the most important lesson that I learned as a family caregiver, and carry forward my Dad’s legacy. ❤️🎶
16 May 2024
Asking for help after a breast cancer diagnosis can be difficult. So how do you get the support you need without feeling guilty about it?
In this episode of Dear Cancer, I’m Beautiful, clinical psychologist and caregiving expert @drallisonapplebaum shares practical advice on how to ask for help, communicate your needs, and feel more comfortable accepting support from others.
🎥 Watch “How to Ask for Help and Accept Support After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis” on YouTube for helpful insights on asking for and accepting support. Link in bio!
Special thanks to @Novartis for making this episode possible.
04 Nov 2026
Dancing through this pregnancy has been the best physical challenge. Each day was a new adventure with my center of gravity changing, and each exercise intensified with the weight of growing life. The challenges were different, though, from the classes I dragged myself to after multiple pregnancy losses, failed embryo transfers, or myriad other heartbreaks that have accumulated. Classes I took in tears, desperate to remind myself of my strength, and finding that literally going through the motions was the most courageous step I could take.
My path to motherhood has been deeply challenging. Like caregiving, it’s been a traumatic journey lived behind the scenes, a dark backdrop to moments of light, and one that is increasingly becoming the norm. Like so many, for years my life has been shaped by early morning medical appointments, countless injections, multiple surgeries, medical mistakes, masking out of fear of getting sick, and the inability to plan past the present…an experience similar to those of the patients I’ve worked with professionally, but for which awareness, support, and advocacy have been largely absent. There is so much to say about this journey and how it’s shaped my experience of this pregnancy, and certainly in the future, how it will shape motherhood. I have a lot to say about trauma-informed care, what that means in practice, and how women’s healthcare has failed too many of us. And, I have a lot to say about the stark disparity in support for those bringing life into the world v. those supporting loved ones making their exit (which I wrote about in Stand By Me, but which became even clearer as soon as I became visibly pregnant). Enough for a next book, even…
For now, I’m deeply grateful that my early life passion has become my greatest coping strategy, and that through dance I’ve continued to feel whole, even when physically broken. And, I’m grateful for @megan.lc.mcnally (who of course I met through dance), who so perfectly captured the strength and courage I’m proud to have maintained, and which I hope have been infused in this new soul who just made their debut on the Earth stage ✨
30 Oct 2026
Fellow caregivers, this is going to be a really good one.
On October 2, I am teaming up with Allison Applebaum, clinical psychologist and author of the book "Stand by Me: A Guide to Navigating Modern, Meaningful Caregiving," for a workshop looking at how to find meaning in caregiving. Even when it’s hard.
Allison is a total rock star in the field of caregiver well-being. She has both vision and the research to back it up; if everyone just listened to her, caregiver burden would decrease substantially.
And for those of you who don’t know me, I am a speaker, journalist and culture critic with nearly two decades of experience covering the culture and politics of parenting and caregiving. In 2024, I published the book "When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others." (Between us, I never loved that subtitle and will tell you why during the workshop.)
This workshop will not be about, as Allison puts it, making lemonade out of the bitter lemons caregiving delivers to our homes and hearts.
Instead, it is about bringing intention and curiosity to who we are in the experience, and how we can grow from it.
Allison has decades of clinical experience—currently, she is a professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine and director of the Steven S. Elbaum Family Center for Caregiving at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York—as well as a near decade of lived experience as a caregiver for her dad.
She also helped develop something called Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Caregivers, which assists caregivers in navigating stress and overwhelm by finding pathways to meaning.
Together we will offer insights, anecdotes and best practices including:
--The cultural and political causes that make it hard to find meaning in caregiving
--The difference between meaning and happiness, and how our culture flattens the two
--How the healthcare system hinders caregivers’ capacity to find meaning in the experience
--Questions you can ask yourself to lead you on the path towards meaning
More info at elissa.substack.com
25 Sep 2026
🎧 New Podcast Episode Is Live - How to Ask for Help and Accept Support After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Asking for help after a breast cancer diagnosis can be incredibly hard - even when you know you need it.
In this Dear Cancer, I’m Beautiful Signature Series episode, I’m joined by clinical psychologist, researcher, author, and caregiving scientist @drallisonapplebaum.
How do you know what you actually need? Who do you ask? And how do you accept support without feeling guilty, like a burden, or like you’re losing your independence?
My hope is that this conversation helps make asking for help feel less overwhelming, and gives you real ways to get the support you need - on your terms.
🎥 Tap the link in my bio to watch the full episode on YouTube.
Special thanks to @novartis for making this episode possible.
09 Sep 2026
HOW IS THAT WITH SOMEONE WITH THE MEANS OF DOLLY PARTON ENDED UP NEGLECTING HER HEALTH TO CARE FOR HER HUSBAND?
I explored this question in a new reported piece for CNN.
link in stories
----
In October, Dolly Parton gave her fans a health update.
In a video titled “I ain’t dead yet!,” the singer explained: “Back when my husband Carl was sick, that was a long time, and then he passed, I didn’t take care of myself, so I let a lot of things go that I should have been taking care of.”
Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, died in March 2025. While the couple never disclosed what disease he had, Parton shared that he was “ill for quite a while.” Parton, of course, died this week of cancer, which she didn’t talk about publicly, following a couple of years of health issues including kidney stones. We don’t know how she didn’t take care of herself, but her few words speak volumes given that she had been taking such extensive care of her husband.
While that video update 10 months ago may have felt like a small detail in the life of one of America’s most beloved musicians, it gives voice to a big problem immediately recognized by many of America’s 63 million caregivers.
When you care for someone else, it is all too easy to neglect to care for yourself.
“The data shows this is happening in millions of homes across America. Caregivers’ health is worn down by the labor of care. Even with her privilege, Dolly is not an exception,” said Jason Resendez, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving.
28 Aug 2026
Movement can be so much more than movement. đź©°
During our NYC Community Performance panel, Dr. Allison Applebaum spoke about the way our bodies can carry anxiety, depression, trauma, and grief—and how moving them can sometimes help us feel a little lighter, even if only for a moment.
That is so much of what Onco-Ballet is about: creating space to move through what we’re carrying, reconnect with our bodies, and do it alongside people who understand. 💗
No perfection required. Just movement, community, and room to feel whatever is there.
#OncoBallet #CancerCommunity #MovementAsMedicine #DanceForHealing #CancerSurvivorship
21 Aug 2026
What if movement could help carry what words cannot?
During our NYC Community Performance panel discussion, Dr. Allison Applebaum shared how dance became a source of healing during a season of profound loss.
At Onco-Ballet, we witness the power of movement every week. Through ballet, we create space for self-care, connection, and healing—one step at a time. 💗🩰
How has movement helped you reconnect with yourself? ✨
✨ Join us for our West Coast Community Performance this October.
🎟️ Tickets and information about our post-performance panel discussion are available at the link in our bio.
Our educational panel series is made possible through the generous support of @novartis . Thank you for helping us create space for conversations like these.
#OncoBallet #HealingThroughMovement #CancerCommunity #Survivorshup #DanceHeals Ballet
04 Aug 2026
When I began the Caregivers Clinic at MSK in 2011, so many caregivers came to sessions and shared statements like, “I have no idea how to speak to my husband about his illness” or “Am I even allowed to speak to the oncologist? I’m not the patient with cancer.” It became clear that caregivers were in need of communication skills training, to assist them to carry forward their critical role as members of the healthcare team. To address this need, I and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center developed a brief communication skills training program where we taught caregivers 6 key skills and then had them practice these skills immediately with actors, trained to portray their care partners and members of the healthcare team. The result? With initial funding from the @americancancersociety , we were able to demonstrate reduced anxiety, distress, and enhanced preparedness for patient death in caregivers of patients with recurrent brain tumors. Engaging in the training helped them open and navigate difficult but necessary advance care planning discussions.
How gratifying it is that we are now able to take a significant step in ensuring this type of training eventually makes it to all caregivers who need it. Earlier this week I received a Notice of Award from the National Cancer Institute, and with their support over the next 5 years, we’ll be able to evaluate the benefits of this training in 200 caregivers of patients with advanced cancers, as well as the patients for whom they provide care.
Receiving funding from the NIH today - in this climate - is exquisitely challenging, and it is humbling and exciting to see that research focused on caregivers is receiving support. Most importantly, I’m grateful that we’ll be able to continue to support caregivers as they shoulder such tremendous - and increasing - healthcare responsibilities!
31 Jul 2026
In 2017 and 2019 I received funding from the @americancancersociety to develop targeted psychosocial interventions for cancer caregivers, one focused on addressing existential distress and the other on giving caregivers the communication skills they need to engage in difficult but necessary advance care planning discussions. As a result of this ACS support, my team collected enough compelling data to secure federal funding (i.e., from the NIH) to more definitively evaluate the benefits of such approaches and make them maximally effective. Once the trials are complete, these support programs can be made available to cancer caregivers across the US. That’s the power of the ACS. Yes, they are working to cure cancer. And, they are working to ensure that as caregivers stand by patients and survivors, they receive high quality support.
Last year, I had the gift of dancing in the finale of @danceagainstcancer , an event that supports the ACS and research such as mine. Getting on stage as a dancer And an ACS researcHER was the most beautiful melding of my worlds. It was extra special to do so alongside my friends at @oncoballet . I’m sad to be missing Dance Against Cancer this evening at City Center and hope all of you in NYC will grab a last minute ticket. And for those who cannot attend, I do hope you’ll consider supporting the ACS. Doing so will make the difference for so many patients, survivors, and yes, caregivers. 🩰♥️💙
18 May 2026
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