Trauma Informed Therapy: Understanding Hope

Is Hope Always Positive?

In training to become a therapist, we learn that 'instilling hope' is a vital aspect of our work. Overall, fostering hope in therapy is essential for nurturing a sense of possibility in our future thriving. However, it’s important to recognize that there are circumstances when hope can become dysfunctional. In these situations, dysfunctional hope may keep us tethered to relationships and circumstances that will not change or nourish us, regardless of how long we endure them or how much effort we invest. Sometimes, letting go of hope is necessary for our growth and well-being.

Is Quitting Always Bad?

Diligence, endurance, and persistence are all important qualities that often lead to success. However, there’s a cultural narrative that promotes dysfunctional hope, suggesting it's best not to give up on people and situations, or not to give up at all. Words like 'quitter' are used to instill shame for walking away from a goal, person, or circumstance that is destructive and soul-sucking. In the context of hope in therapy, it's essential to recognize when letting go of hope is not only acceptable but necessary for emotional well-being.

Hope: The Reality Killer

In circumstances where we continually find ourselves in danger—whether psychic or physical—defeated, or without agency, maintaining dysfunctional hope becomes an illusion. For instance, when you're working with a narcissistic boss or dealing with a family member who shows no respect for your boundaries, and you've tried again and again to communicate your limits, you are unlikely to succeed in changing their behavior. Holding onto hope in therapy can make you vulnerable to manipulation.

Another example arises when we're infatuated with someone who simply does not reciprocate our feelings. When in love, it’s tempting to rationalize away the lack of responsiveness by excusing the other’s neglect or assuming the blame, thinking, 'I’m just too needy.'

Letting go of hope is the path forward. As one of my clients so eloquently put it, 'Hope is a reality killer.' Reality, in both cases, refers to how people are and how they show up in our lives. You can't force others to change. Of course, letting go of our attachments requires tremendous courage.

Witness Your Own Suffering

Consider how hope creates an inner state of both expectation and fear, often leading to what can be described as dysfunctional hope. Sense how that energy actually feels in your body. There's adrenaline. There's tension because with hope, we simultaneously anticipate disappointment. The possibility of hope automatically implies its opposite - no hope. Feel how that feels. It's an inner rollercoaster. Fluttery. Insecure. Not grounded. Anxiety-inducing. Even exciting.

For those people who may have grown up with unreliable, neglectful, abusive, or narcissistic caregivers, this dynamic will feel familiar and is associated with feelings of 'love' and longing. (Stay tuned for another blog about this!)

Cultivating awareness of our physical (somatic) experience is an essential step in hope in therapy, helping us break these attachment patterns and liberate ourselves from the chains of alternating hope and fear, including the process of letting go of hope.

What's the alternative?

Stop. Breathe. Let go of stories of fulfillment and narratives of disaster. From a Buddhist perspective, there's a kind of aggression in dysfunctional hope. It imposes an expectation of personal wish fulfillment on the situation. Everything is sacred. Everything is workable if you're engaging with what's real instead of projecting a fantasy onto a person or situation.

All circumstances offer us opportunities to come to know ourselves as tremendously beautiful and real. Viktor Frankl explored this in his seminal book "Man's Search for Meaning." Imprisoned in a concentration camp, he discovered hope in therapy, finding meaning, strength, and the will to survive.