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Hope Interventions
Running head: HOPE INTERVENTIONS
Strategies for Accentuating Hope
Shane J. Lopez, C. R. Snyder, Jeana Magyar-Moe, Lisa M. Edwards, Jennifer T. Pedrotti,
Kelly Janowski, Jerri L. Turner, & Cindy Pressgrove
University of Kansas
To appear in: Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (Eds). Positive psychology in practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
For additional information contact S. J. Lopez, Department of Psychology and Research in Education, 619 Joseph R. Pearson Hall, 1122 West Campus Road, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 or
Introduction
People somehow summon enough mental energy to set the goal of seeking a therapist or other healer. Likewise, they identify pathways to the desired helper and muster the requisite energy to build a working alliance with their newfound agent of change. In essence, self-referred clients demonstrate hope in their pursuit of therapeutic support by the time that they reach their therapist. In turn, therapists can help clients to name and to nurture the hope that they already possess.
In this chapter, we identify formal strategies for accentuating the hope that people possess. Where available, we discuss the effectiveness data associated with these strategies. Given that most therapists are eclectic, we also describe informal strategies that could be implemented within any therapeutic framework; moreover we will address common strategies that can be assigned to clients as "homework." We will begin by outlining hope theory and discuss hope's role as an active ingredient in psychological change.
Hope Theory
According to hope theory, hope reflects individuals’ perceptions regarding their capacities to: (1) clearly conceptualize goals; (2) develop the specific strategies to reach those goals (pathways thinking); and (3) initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (agency thinking). The pathways and agency components are both necessary, but neither by itself is sufficient to sustain successful goal pursuit. As such, pathways and agency thoughts are additive, reciprocal, and positively related, but they are not synonymous (Snyder, 1989, 1994, 2000a, 2000b, 2002; Snyder, Harris et al., 1991). According to hope theory, a goal can be anything that an individual desires to experience, create, get, do, or become. As such, a goal may be a significant, lifelong pursuit (e.g., developing a comprehensive theory of human motivation), or it may be mundane and brief (e.g., getting a ride to school). Goals also may vary in terms of having perceived probabilities of attainment that vary from very low to very high. On this point, it should be noted that high-hope individuals prefer “stretch goals” that are slightly more difficult than previously attained goals.
Whereas other positive psychology constructs such as goal theory (Covington, 2000; see also Dweck, 1999), optimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982), and problem-solving (Heppner & Petersen, 1982) give differentially weighted emphases to the goal itself or to the future-oriented agency- or pathways-related processes, hope theory equally emphasizes all of these goal-pursuit components (Snyder, 1994). For detailed comparisons of the similarities and differences between hope theory and other theories (e.g., achievement motivation, flow, goal setting, mindfulness, optimism, optimistic explanatory style, problem-solving, resiliency, self-efficacy, self-esteem, Type A behavior pattern, etc.), see Magaletta and Oliver (1999), Peterson (2000), Snyder, (1994, 2002), and Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon (2002).
Hope as an Agent of Change
The power of hope as a motivating force has been discussed throughout modern time and, for the past century, has been examined by medical and psychological scholars. Over the last 40 years, Jerome Frank's (1968, 1975) work has conceptualized hope as a process that is common to all psychotherapy approaches. Karl Menninger (1959), as the president of the American Psychiatric Association, in his academic lecture on hope, issued a call for more rigorous examination of the role of hope in change. As in a response to Menninger’s request, Snyder's operationalization of this robust construct has facilitated, over he last two decades, the scholarly inquiry into hope as a change agent. Indeed, whatever the system of psychotherapy, beneficial change may be attributable, in part, to hope. According to Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon (2000), change occurs because people learn more effective agentic and pathways and goal-directed thinking.
In particular, the agency component is reflected in the placebo effect (i.e., the natural mental energies for change that clients bring to psychotherapy). The particular psychotherapy approaches that are used to provide the client with a route or process for moving forward to attain positive therapeutic goals reflect the pathways component. (p. 267)
Furthermore, Snyder and his colleagues (Snyder, Ilardi, Cheavens, et al., 2000; Snyder, Ilardi, Michael, & Cheavens, 2000) have offered detailed hypotheses about how hope, and agency and pathways in particular, might help to explain the role of common and specific treatment factors in psychotherapy. Before any specific treatment strategies are applied, the primary source of change is the client's expectancy that therapy will make a positive difference in his or her life. These initial improvements are analogous to increases in the agency component of hope--determination that one can make improvements in their life. Therefore, it is believed that increases in agency, as opposed to increases in pathways thinking, will be related to positive change in the first stages of therapy. The positive changes that occur in these early stages of therapy have been described elsewhere as "remoralization" (Howard, Krause, Saunders, & Koptka, 1997), and they are characterized by enhanced subjective well-being. More specifically, clients begin to experience relief from distress, and have renewed hope that their situation can and will improve. Increased well-being even may take place before the client steps into therapy room; that is to say, an initial phone call to set up the appointment may engender feelings of relief from distress.
From this perspective on hope, it is conceivable that hope is malleable and that it can be the spark for and pathway to change. Likewise, beneficial change may lead to more hope for creating a good life. Because most people have the capacity to hope (they possess the basic components of the cognitive skills needed to generate a hopeful line of thought), accentuating this change agent requires naming and nurturing this personal strength in the context of supportive helping relationships.
We propose that hope finding, bonding, enhancing, and reminding are the essential strategies for accentuating hope. Hope finding can strengthen the clients’ expectations that the therapists can and will help them. Bolstering the clients’ expectations for assistance simultaneously may instill hope in change and enhance the therapeutic bond between client and therapist. Hope bonding is the formation of a sound hopeful therapeutic alliance; it grounds the client in a hopeful therapeutic context. Therapists possessing high levels of hope may be most facile at meeting the important therapeutic goal of establishing an emotionally charged connection. They also may be best at collaborating on mutually agreed upon goals by engaging in productive tasks. Hope enhancing strategies typically involve enlisting clients in tasks that are designed to: (1) conceptualize reasonable goals more clearly; (2) produce numerous pathways to attainment; (3) summon the energy to maintain pursuit; and (4) reframe insurmountable obstacles as challenges to be overcome. Hope reminding is the promotion of effortful daily use of hopeful cognitions. Goal thoughts and barrier thoughts are identified cognitive cues that stimulate the client to incorporate therapeutic techniques that have previously enhanced hopeful thought. Next, we will describe the formal and informal strategies for accentuating hope by finding, bonding, enhancing, and reminding.
Hope Finding
Hope can exist as a relatively stable personality disposition (i.e., a trait), or as a more temporary frame of mind (i.e., a state). Similarly, hopeful thought can occur at various levels of abstraction. For example, one can be hopeful about achieving: (1) goals in general (i.e., a trait); (2) goals in a certain life arena (i.e., domain-specific); or (3) one goal in particular (i.e., goal-specific). Finding the hope that each person possesses is essential to building personal resources in preparation for the therapeutic change process. Naming and measuring the type of hope most relevant to a client's goal pursuit can be achieve via formal and informal means.
Formal Strategies
Brief, valid measures of hope can be used during initial phases of therapy to find an individual's hope. Snyder, Hoza et al. (1997) developed the Children’s Hope Scale (CHS) as a trait hope measure for children ages seven through 14 years (see Appendix A). The CHS is comprised of three agency and three pathways items, and it has demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties: (1) internal consistencies (overall alphas from .72 to .86); (2) test-retest reliabilities of .71 to .73 over one month; and (3) convergent and discriminant validities. Furthermore, this scale has been used with physically and psychologically healthy children from public schools, boys diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, children with various medical problems, children under treatment for cancer or asthma, child burn victims, adolescents with sickle-cell disease, and early adolescents exposed to violence (Snyder, Hoza et al., 1997).
To measure the trait aspect of hope in adolescents and adults, ages 15 and higher, Snyder, Harris et al. (1991) developed the Hope Scale (see Appendix A).This scale consists of four items measuring agency, four items measuring pathways, and four distracter items. Having been used with a wide range of samples, the Hope Scale has exhibited acceptable reliability and validity: (1) internal consistency (overall alphas from .74 to .88; agency alphas of .70 to .84; and pathways alphas of .63 to .86); (2) test-retest reliabilities ranging from .85 for three weeks to .82 for ten weeks; and (3) concurrent and discriminant validity (Snyder, Harris et al., 1991).(Lopez, Ciarlelli, Coffman, Stone, and Wyatt, 2000, provide an in-depth coverage of these formal measures, including the development and validation of additional self-report, observational, and narrative measures of hope.)
Informal Strategies
Narrative approaches often have been used to illustrate the theory of hope to children, adolescents, and adults in individual therapy and psychoeducational programs. By telling stories of fictitious and real characters, therapists engage clients in thinking about goals, agency, and pathways. Furthermore, with time, clients tell stories about their goal pursuits, thereby making hope more personally relevant. Hope-related themes are captured when clinicians explore the following aspects of clients' stories:
1. How did the client generate goals?
2. What was the motivation?
3. How attainable or realistic were the goals?
4. How were the goals perceived?
5. What was the client’s mood/attitude during the process?
6. How was movement toward goals initiated?
7. How was movement maintained?
8. What were the biggest barriers to reaching the goals?
9. What emotions did these barriers elicit?
10. How were barriers overcome and what steps were taken to reach the goals?
11. Were the goals attained?
12. How does client feel about the outcome?
13. If the client were to attempt same goal today, what would he/she do differently?
14. Can the client re-cast the experience in more hopeful terms? (i.e., by identifying lessons learned that can facilitate future efforts.)
It may be necessary to offer some suggestions so as to direct the client’s attention to hopeful elements in their stories. It should be emphasized that these narratives should support a sense of movement rather than stagnant rumination. The benefits of narrative techniques come from the integrating of these cognitive and emotional elements of the client’s stories.
Another informal strategy, hope profiling is a semi-structured intervention in which the therapist requests that the client writes (or audiotapes) brief stories about past and current goal pursuits in order to uncover the hope that is part of a person's psychological make-up. Typically five stories (two to five pages in length) detailing goal pursuits in various life domains reveal the requisite pathways and agency involved in hopeful pursuits. Review of these stories in the therapeutic context can help clients to realize that they have the resources necessary to make positive changes. Also, clients learn the language of hope by identifying the goal thoughts, pathway thinking, and agency sources referred to in their narrative.
Hope Bonding
Bordin (1976) defined the working alliance as the collaboration between the therapist and client that is based on their agreement on the goals and tasks of counseling and on the development of a personal attachment bond. As described previously, Snyder’s (1994) conceptualization of hope suggests a model comprised of three cognitive components: goals, agency, and pathways. Goals are considered the targets or endpoints of mental action sequences and, as such, form the anchor of hope theory (Snyder, Ilardi, Michael, & Cheavens, 2000). Pathways, which are the routes toward desired goals, are necessary to attain goals and navigate around obstacles. Finally, agency taps the motivation that is necessary to begin and sustain movement towards goals. Given these definitions, it seems plausible that working alliance goals coincide with hope goal thoughts, tasks coincide with pathways, and the bond translates to agency (Lopez et al., 2000). Indeed, empirical research has supported this theoretical relationship between the working alliance and hope and their components (i.e., tasks and pathways, bond and agency; Magyar-Moe, Edwards, and Lopez, 2001). Although one cannot determine the causality through correlational data, the large amount of shared variance (r=.48) between these two models suggests that increasing an individual’s levels of hope also may increase working alliance ratings and vice versa. Thus, working to build hopeful alliances seems appropriate, given the many positive correlations between the working alliance, hope, and various positive outcomes (Horvath & Greenberg, 1994; Snyder, 2000).
Formal Strategies
Working alliance and hope researchers have outlined what it takes to form a productive therapeutic relationship, and have described how a sound relationship is associated with beneficial change. Indeed, Bordin (1994) stated that negotiation between the client and therapist about the change goal that is most relevant to the client’s struggle is essential. Such negotiation depends largely upon the bonding component, defined as the positive personal attachment between the client and the therapist that results from working together on a shared activity. Bonding in therapy usually is expressed in terms of liking, trusting, and respect for one another, in addition to a feeling of mutual commitment and understanding in the activity (Bordin, 1994). Such a relationship mirrors that required for begetting hope. According to Snyder and colleagues (1997), hope flourishes when people develop a strong bond to one or more caregivers, allowing the person to perceive himself or herself as having some sense of control in the world. “As social creatures, we need to confide in someone about our dreams and goals” (Rodriguez-Hanley & Snyder, 2000, p. 46). Thus, it seems that for both the therapeutic alliance and for hope to develop, a supportive environment is needed in which people receive basic instruction in goal pursuits from a positive model (Snyder, 2000).
Building the working alliance based on hope theory principles seems in order, given that the goal of connecting with other people is fundamental, that the seeking of one’s goals almost always occurs within the context of social commerce (Snyder, Rand, & Sigmon, 2002), and that goal directed thinking virtually always develops in the context of other people who teach hope (Snyder, 2000). Indeed, Lopez and colleagues (2000) state that hope enhancement strategies “are designed to help clients in conceptualizing clearer goals, producing numerous pathways to attainment, summoning the mental energy to maintain the goal pursuit, and reframing insurmountable obstacles as challenges to be overcome. The hopeful therapeutic relationship facilitates these hope components” (p. 123).
Taken together, the working alliance and hope literature suggests that building a hopeful alliance involves: (1) respectfully negotiating flexible therapeutic goals: (2) generating numerous and varied pathways to goal attainment: and (3) translating the sense of connectedness between therapist and client into the mental energy necessary to sustain pursuit toward therapeutic goals.
Informal Strategies
Based on the assumption that hope begets more hope, hopeful familial relationships and friendships could serve as hope-enhancing agents. Clients could benefit from evaluating their relationships and determining which generate mental energy that facilitates coping, and those that drain that energy. Though data about hope in friendships, sibships, and marriages have not been collected, the infectious nature of hope in such contexts has been assumed (Snyder, 1994). Therefore, therapists should encourage the development of new relationships that increases hope in one’s life. Associating with individuals who are supportive of goal pursuits, who challenge their peers to pursue “stretch” goals, and who encourage peers to overcome barriers may help people crystallize their hopeful thought.