The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get There from Here

In this compelling look at the psychology of hope, C.R. Snyder provides insights into the personality of the highly hopeful individual. Drawing on inspiring clinical cases, as well as his seminal research and widely distributed hope scale, Snyder shows that very hopeful people differ from the rest of us in some intriguing respects. First, they have the ability to envision a broader range of goals than most people. Second, they have greater will power and energy in pursuing those goals. And third, they have the skills to generate a greater variety of routes to reach their objectives. The book includes in the first chapter a hope test for adults that allows readers to assess their individual levels of hope. Snyder then analyzes the significant events in the first 18 years that contribute to the development of hope, and he provides a useful scale for children that parents and professionals can administer to determine a child's level of hope. Through a variety of clinical cases, he also explores how hope is often destroyed in children and in adults. He shows, for example, how neglect, abuse, parental loss, unrealistic expectations for the child, and inconsistent parenting can erode in different ways children's ability to envision goals or their ability to develop strategies to reach them. Finally, he provides practical, research-based information on how hope can be fostered in children and adults. In this section, he gives specific advice on how to envision goals more strongly, how to increase one's energy in pursuing one's objectives, and how to develop a greater variety of strategies to reach one's goals. The Psychology of Hope is a book for anyone who seeks to understand thepsychological underpinning of this essential virtue.