Why Hope Matters in Therapy (and How We Find it Together)
I’ve been a therapist for more than 25 years, and while the focus of my work and how it’s structured has changed over time, one thing that has stayed the same is the central message of Hope.
It’s on my website - “There is Hope” - and from our first phone call, people often tell me things like…
I saw that and thought, Yes! That is what I’m needing!
Hope… how do I get that?
I saw the word “hope” and felt a little bit like… maybe things can get better…
I have a Hope pillow on my chair, right across from where clients usually sit. It’s not uncommon for people to stop mid-sentence and say, “I like your pillow. It feels good to look at.”
Obviously hope is something that we’re hungry for. After months or years of living with pain and struggle, working to overcome anxiety or trauma, the idea of experiencing hope feels like a salve to a weary soul. It also often feels very abstract and out of reach.
What is Hope?
Hope is defined as…
wanting something good to happen and believing it is possible, even without total certainty
to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment, or belief that it can happen
to expect with confidence
to cherish a desire with anticipation
With hope we can stay connected to positive feelings, even in the midst of negative experiences… we can cherish desires with anticipation instead of feeling immersed in problems with a sense of hopelessness that things can ever change.
Hope goes beyond just feeling happy - which is tied to circumstances - and stabilizes internal feelings regardless of external circumstance. It’s the belief that things can get better at some point, even when they’re hard right now. It’s also the awareness that we have what it takes to navigate the hard things until the better times come again.
Hope is the mechanism that allows us to keep going even when things are hard.
Hope is what keeps someone going through another day of high anxiety and panic attacks…
Hope is what allows someone grieving the loss of a loved one to believe they won't always hurt this much…
Hope is what encourages someone whose marriage is falling apart to keep showing up for counseling…
Hope is what helps someone who's been in therapy before believe healing is still possible.
Hope can help us overcome difficult life circumstances and emotions, believe that hard problems can be solved, and rreconnect us to the reality that healing is possible, even when life is not easy.
How Do We Reconnect to Hope?
Because hope requires a lot of believing in the possibility of things we don’t always see just yet, it can feel really hard to access. How do we make such an abstract idea become something we can intentionally grab onto?
One of the things clients often discover very quickly is that I approach therapy in a practical way. I don't believe people are broken. I believe that if we understand the problem well enough, we can usually begin finding a path toward a solution. Sometimes that path is straightforward, sometimes it's winding, but there is always a next step.
If we have a problem, then we also have a solution… it’s just a matter of breaking things down until we find the answer.
In therapy we create the path forward together. The steps on this path usually look something like…
You share information about your problems, goals, and desires, and I start to connect the dots and piece things together so that we can make sense of what to do next
I share my thoughts with you, and get your feedback - I have knowledge and expertise in mental health, but you’re the expert on yourself and your life
Together we puzzle out how to break the problem that seems big and heavy and unmanageable into simple steps that can be taken one at a time
Often the first step is coping skills and small actions that start to bring immediate relief. The next step may be understanding and working through feelings of grief, loss, or hurt. And the final step, ideally, is resolving things at the root so that life actually feels different moving forward - without so much effort and exhaustion to manage the burdens that have been holding you back.
A Word About Faith
For a lot of people, the ideas of faith and hope go hand in hand.
For many of the people I work with, faith has had a significant impact on their life. Sometimes faith has been a positive resource that offers great comfort and guidance. Other times faith was connected to a negative event that caused pain and created trauma.
When faith has been a source of comfort, it’s a critical resource we can integrate into the process of therapy. For many, their faith is the only thing that allows them to hold onto hope when life is hard.
When faith has been a source of pain, it can feel especially hard to connect to hope. Sometimes we have to wrestle through the messiness of what happened to get back to finding hope in the midst of struggle.
There is Hope
Like you, I’m a person going through this life experiencing ups and downs, navigating hard things and painful experiences. I know what it’s like to feel like hope is out of reach, to need it but not know how to access it. I also know that reconnecting to hope at times of struggle comes with the strength to keep going - sometimes it’s just hard to find it on your own. Sometimes we need the help and support of someone else to get back to the hope that keeps us going.
One of my favorite parts of this work is watching people begin therapy believing they'll probably always struggle this way, and then later hearing them say things like, "I feel like a different person," or "I didn't think this kind of change was possible."
That's why hope has stayed at the center of my work all these years. Not because life is always easy, but because I've watched people heal. I've seen people overcome things they once believed would never change, and reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and their future.
