Main description:

Why is hope so fundamental to our existence? Hope is increasingly being acknowledged as an important factor both for people's resilience and for positive therapeutic outcomes. In considering this and many other questions, this evocative textbook introduces the reader to the repeated shifting, or 'dance', between hope and despair that is so often encountered by practitioners working with profoundly traumatised individuals.

This book brings a sharp focus to the ways in which therapeutic relationships can draw individuals out of the constant oscillation between light and dark. It provides an insightful and thoughtful discussion not just about despair itself, but about how to be with despair. Informed by the author's own years of experience in the field of psychotherapy, this engaging and stimulating book provides practical guidance on how students, trainees and practitioners can inspire fresh hope in deeply troubled clients.

Contents:

1. Introducing the Dance
2. Desperately Seeking the 'Happy Ever After': Some Theoretical Perspectives on Hope
3. Hoping, Imagining and Dreaming: An Evolutionary Perspective
4. Our Need for Hope and its Roots in Childhood
5. The Impact of Trauma as a Hope Destroyer Across the Life-cycle
6. When Hoping Keeps People Alive: Non Mentalised States and the Need for Illusions
7. The Internal Dance of Hope and Despair: Dissociation and Shifting Self States
8. Systemic Perspectives: Our Responses to Getting Stuck in Cycles of Hope and Despair
9. Working with Hopelessness from a Relational Perspective
10. Finding New Perspectives
11. Moving into Hope: New Meanings and New Experiences