Sources of Hope

In other words, how can one foster hope? The literature suggests that promoting agency or self-motivation and goal-setting are key components. The role of community is also important. Landeen and colleagues (1996) interviewed 15 mental health professionals representing a variety of disciplines concerning ways they instilled hope in their patients. Responses included: believing in the patient, assisting the patient with meeting goals, in particular setting small achievable goals, and persevering with the patient despite obstacles. Averill, Catlin, and Chon (1990) propose two rules of hope: being realistically achievable and accompanied by a willingness to take action to achieve the hoped for goals. Melges (1982) proposes "self-futuring," a therapeutic process of bringing the future into the psychological present in order to choose and clarify realistic personal goals. Self-futuring will be discussed in more detail shortly. Personal goals are not achieved without support, hence the critical role of community in fostering hope.

In this vein, Bland and Darlington (2002) found that among family members of people being treated for serious mental illnesses, hope was grounded in the present, with a view to a better future. Families identified a range of sources of hope: some were external, such as professionals, other family members, or the ill family member. Other sources were from within, mostly from their own religious beliefs and practices to find meaning in the mental illness. This research suggests that mental health professionals hold the potential to support and sustain hope or to diminish it. Families found helpful simple human responses, such as offering encouragement, being available in times of crisis, and including families in overall patient care.

Nunn (1996) notes that the role of hope is evident in treatments which promote mastery, provide meaning, reduce anticipated isolation or alienation, and all therapies that increase one's sense of dignity and self-worth to face the future

Hope and the Religious Imagination 59

positively. Wing and Brown (1970), for example, demonstrated that in psychiatric rehabilitation wards, leadership style characterized by enthusiasm was associated with decreased length of stay of institutionalized patients. Hatfield and Lefley (1993) indicate that psychiatric patients can exert some control over their disorders, and they should be active agents in managing their illness as well as partners in the design and implementation of treatment. For Capps (1995), hope depends on having a range of opportunities sufficient to experience oneself as a choosing being. Thus, autonomy is vital to the development of a hopeful spirit. I have seen this concept put into action on inpatient units, where, within certain parameters, patients are given as much choice as possible in their treatment.

Snyder's hope theory (Snyder, 1994, 2002, Snyder et al., 2000) emphasizes agency, goals, and pathways. Hope theory is concerned with people attaching themselves to desired positive outcomes versus distancing themselves from negative outcomes. Agency thought - i.e., the perceived capacity to use one's pathways to reach desired goals - is the motivational component in hope theory. Hopeful thinking requires both pathways and agency thought; the two feed each other. For Snyder, most people lack hope because they were not taught to think in this manner, or circumstances intervened during their childhoods to destroy such hopeful thought.

Goal is the cognitive component anchoring hope theory. Snyder outlines the two major types of goals in hope theory: 1) positive or approach goals (reaching for the first time, sustaining the present goal outcome, increasing that which has already been initiated), and 2) forestalling of a negative goal outcome (deterring so that it never appears, deterring so that its appearance is delayed). Emotions inform goal-directed thought (Michael, 2000). Low hopers ruminate about being stuck and engage in almost magical escape fantasies. Preoccupied with avoidance thoughts, low-hope persons continue their passivity because they do not learn from past experiences (Snyder and Pulvers, 2001). People with low hope tend to be lonely, fearful of interpersonal closeness, and unforgiving of other people (Thompson et al., 2002). In this way, emotion plays a large role in hopefulness.

Snyder (1994) discusses several ways of promoting hope agency: helping the individual to recall past successes, reconceptualizing goals as challenges rather than threats, prioritizing goals, and engaging in energy-promoting activities, such as physical exercise. Snyder also proposes a correlation between hope and Meaning