Chapter 4 Hope and the Religious Imagination

I work with a client in her sixties who comes to see me every week for what I call a "dose of hope." Each week we talk about her personal situation, and then she asks me to lay hands on her and bless her. She says this practice makes her feel very special. Her diagnosis is schizophrenia. Another woman, in her fifties and also diagnosed with schizophrenia, calls me when she is anxious to ask for a prayer over the phone. Her concerns are often health-related. A third woman, in her thirties, comes faithfully to an ecumenical Christian service held at the hospital. Her diagnosis is major depression, and she says she finds the services comforting. What do blessings, prayers, and religious services have in common that these women seek? I suggest they all offer hope.

Many individuals take hope for granted, and it is not until their future is rendered uncertain or taken out of their control that hope begins to falter. Writers on the subject of hope often refer to psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's (1963) experiences in a concentration camp, for in that milieu all the usual sources of hope were taken away. Family, health, job - in many cases concentration camp victims lost these. Furthermore, he made a connection between having something to live for and physical survival - Frankl labeled his time in the camps a period of "provisional existence," an existence with an uncertain future.

Psychiatric patients are particularly vulnerable to hopelessness, and the fact that they suffer from illnesses of the mind makes it that much more difficult to foster a hopeful mental state. Mental illnesses can be more challenging to treat than physical ailments. A broken arm can be mended. But how does one treat the realization that one can no longer work due to disability? Or the recognition that one will not realize one's dream of living independently? Or the struggle to retain control of one's mind?

In this chapter I explore hope and the religious imagination. Hope, imagination, and religion, I suggest, are integrally connected, offering a counterpoint to one another. I begin with the nature and origins of hope. I examine the importance of hope for recovery from mental illness; then I turn to sources of hope. Psychological hope, it seems, is concerned with attaining some sense of mastery as far as the future is concerned. In a theological context, however, hope is often attached to meaning. I examine ways that hope is conceived in several of the world's religious traditions.

In the chapter's second part I turn to imagination and story. What role do these play in fostering hope? Religious stories are foundational in the lives of many people around the world, leading to a discussion of narrative therapy. I explore narrative as an expression of imagination and ways that religion can serve as a

56 Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health

warehouse for stories. Finally, by looking at early childhood development, one can see an association between hope, story, and religious imagination. The origins of hope and religion are linked, I believe, in early infant-caretaker relations. This raises the questions of which came first - hope or a religious consciousness - and of the precise relationship between religion and hope.