The Nature of Hope

The Nature of Hope

By definition, people only come to therapy when they haven’t been able to solve their problems through their own efforts, or by seeking advice from friends, or self-help books.

At the beginning of therapy, hope is often quite low.

And yet numerous studies have proved evidentially the value of hope in the counselling process. In other words, those who have a strong belief that they will get better are actually more likely to do so.

There’s a lot more to hope, I believe, than a mere placebo effect. Clients who have hope are more likely to take active steps, to put into practice strategies and ideas that they’ve discussed with their psychotherapist. Whereas the placebo effect seems to operate in a more passive and unconscious way.

Hope is, in itself, curative. So the question then becomes – how best can psychotherapy foster it?

Most of all, I feel that the therapist’s own hope for the client is likely to have an impact. (Indeed, this intuition is actually supported by research). Seeing that someone else has hope for us, even when we don’t hold out much hope for ourselves, can change things.

Since I am by nature an optimist, and a passionate believer in the power and value of therapy, I do like to believe that the hope I have for my clients will be a help to them.