What is the psychologist definition of hope

-- james gittens (jamesgittens@hotmail.com), April 04, 2004

Answers

James Averill did a book on Hope, and David Myers has also done some writing on false hope. If you check PsycInfo, you'll find many articles, including some on the Multidimensional Hope Scale, the Miller Hope Scale, the Hope Index scale and the Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. If you search The WorldCat you'll find books by such prominent authors as Ira Progoff. There is in fact a fairly extensive literature. There is a little bit of lit review in my articcle Vande Kemp, H. (1984). Hope in psychotherapy. The Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 3, 27-35. Reprinted in D. G. Benner (Ed.), Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), April 07, 2004.

Hi James, I am not an expert on hope, but I do have some ideas for you that may be helpful. First, a clinician named Frank hunted for common denominators of different types of successful psychotherapy and thought increasing a patient's hope (or optimism)about the therapy and their improvement, was one such common denominator. Second, for the last decade (or possibly longer), there has been much emphasis in psychology on the value of being optimistic about your future. This optimism is thought to be important in providing more satisfaction in life and also sufficient motivation to be successful with certain difficult tasks (See Seligman). While liberal amounts of hope and optimism are probably usually healthy, there are instances where unrealistic hopes or optimism can cause the individual and others around them major problems. For example, unrealistic expectations about educational goals, career progress, or romantic success, can sometimes leave a person unhappy much of the time and possible lead them to be angry enough to harm others who they might blame for their frustrations. Paul

-- Paul Kleinginna (pkleinginna@georgiasouthern.edu), April 09, 2004.

Hope means to cultivate one's inner strengths, and move beyond negavity especially if one is stuck in life. It does not mean to not allow oneself to experience negative feelings. True, a person can accept themselves where they are even if they are in the midst of a difficult setback. Nevertheless, it's crucial to keep trying to problem solve, and eventially feel better despite the pain. It's always important to have strategies, and set short-term and long- term goals.

-- Carol DePinto (carold@sympatico. ca), September 30, 2004.