Hope matters

Hope is the best predictor for a life well-lived. Yet hope appears strangely under-researched in the context of vulnerable young people in the UK and beyond. Across a series of projects, colleagues and I have focused on hope as a key way to understand the experiences of, and to better help, young people who are vulnerable.

We are interested in young people living in the UK who have multiple layers of vulnerability, i.e. those experiencing poor mental health and social exclusion as well, for example through being not in education, employment or training (some people use the term 'NEET'), or living in deprived coastal communities. We have talked about hope with a lot of vulnerable young people, and with their personal and professional supporters. Invariably, they tell us that hope really matters. They also tell us that people do not talk enough, or openly enough, about hope and how to engender and sustain it.

What is hope and why does it matter?

The focus of my work has always been on hope as conceptualised using the cognitive model. This model, developed by the American psychologist Charles Snyder, suggests that what people hope and expect to come influences their behaviour. Hope is a particular way of thinking that comprises reciprocally derived and mutually reinforcing self-agency (the 'will' or the motivation and self-belief in relation to desired goals) and pathways (the 'ways' or the identification of routes and associated planning to meet goals). Goals are, therefore, essential to hope; the goals must be achievable, but not so easily that they lack meaning or value.

I argue that this cognitive model is the most useful way of understanding hope, i.e. somewhere between a mindset and a skillset; importantly, something we can all keep practising and developing, rather than something people just either have or do not.

This model seems to resonate with vulnerable young people – they tend to intuitively define hope (without any priming) as future-oriented, goal-directed cognition; with the goals typically relating to social relationships, occupation and vocation (see Berry et al., 2021, 2023). Cognitive hope is robustly associated with lots of positive correlates and outcomes for young people, including vulnerable groups, such as better mental health, better functioning, and social inclusion (Berry et al., 2021; Berry & Greenwood, 2018).

Other benefits of hope are that it appears to be a psychologically precise and efficient way of helping people to thrive. A previous evidence synthesis funded by the Wellcome Trust (Berry et al., 2021) suggested that hope is self-reinforcing, i.e. hope feeds itself. Therefore, igniting a spark of hope will help young people to identify and pursue their goals, which increases the chance of goal attainment, which reciprocally raises hope, spurring more ambitious goal achievement – and so the cycle continues; 'now and then I do hit the small goals ... I know I've reached this one, so I know I can reach that one (Bonnett et al., 2018). Young people also suggest that hope is contagious, in that enhancing hope in one person will spur hope in other people; 'hope ripples out across people' (Berry et al., 2021).

Where does hope originate?

Snyder talked about hope originating in childhood in the context of secure attachments to caregivers, and being affected by the unfolding of people's lives. Young people we have spoken to broadly agree; identifying impacts of family and social relationships, available support, resources, and life events.

Young people do also talk, however, about hope as a choice – the possibility of adopting a hopeful stance – although this can be much more challenging in the context of trauma and adversity. We have talked with young people too about where they can source hope from in the present. Young people have invariably emphasised the unique nature of hope, i.e. that different people find hope in different places, but across our studies they have offered suggestions about where to start (see box).

What is the particular value of hope for vulnerable young people?

Hope is a universal. Although unique to individuals and waxing and waning across the life course, the nature and impact of hope appear broadly similar across young people with differing experiences of vulnerability. For example, in an ongoing evidence review of the accounts of hope among higher education students, we have found that hope was described as fundamental, goal-related and resilience-giving. Nonetheless, it is also clear that young people who experience vulnerability, especially when multi-layered, often experience particularly low hope.

Previous work of mine and colleagues (e.g. Bonnett et al., 2018; Gee et al., 2022) shows that experiences of serious mental health problems, like an episode of psychosis, can really undermine young people's hope. The process of recovery can therefore be conceptualised largely as a process of (re)igniting a spark of hopefulness and learning how to maintain this in the face of ongoing adversity. 

Young people who have experienced psychosis have told us (Gee et al., 2022) that increasing their sense of hope allows them to imagine a positive future: 'Now I can see myself being successful. I can see myself being happy, going on adventures. I can just see a good future for myself'. The self-reinforcing nature of hope is such that reflecting on gains already made then spurs an even more profound sense of awakened possibility: '…if I compare myself today to what I was 12 months ago, that is a massive change, so the next 12 months, 12 years, could be completely mind-blowing'.

It is notable too, however, that vulnerable young people may encounter the transmission of low hope from other people around them. This is often unconscious and implicit, for example in the absence of discussing aspirations with young people. This was reflected by a young person we spoke to in Malaysia (Berry et al., 2019): '…before this, the people didn't ask me about this and now… I can answer my questions about this… the people also can know about my dreams'.

More explicitly, when they have experienced a period of mental health problems or struggled to engage in work or study, young people can find that those around them more directly communicate low expectations. One young person told us; 'people who need hopefulness tend to be faced with actions that bar them from hope' (Berry et al., 2021). Young people's own sense of hope must therefore be considered as impacted by the social structures around them. Nonetheless, enhancing young people's individual hope is a means to help them to make use of any supports and resources that do exist in the systems and networks surrounding them.

Is there a downside to hope?

People often ask me – in the context of adversity, trauma, disability, and isolation – does increased hope set young people up to 'fail'? Are we trying to enhance hope for goals that will just never be met?

Many of us will recognise in ourselves a tendency to take a position of 'defensive pessimism'. This involves assuming the worst in the context of events and experiences where we care deeply about the outcome, but have a limited sense of control; for example, when submitting a thesis or experiencing health problems. There can be some benefits to this approach: it can help to manage anxiety and create a sense of preparedness when entering into challenging situations. 

However, this is not to say that defensive pessimism is a better strategy than encouraging hope. Another way of thinking about defensive pessimism is that it is a strategy people employ precisely because their hope is low, i.e. because they are lacking a sense of sufficient self-agency and/or current capacity to identify pathways to obtain their desired outcomes.

Despite the fascinating and important questions here, empirical research on the potential downsides to hope specifically appears to be very limited. Snyder's hope theory articulates how, when encountering obstacles to goals, people high in hope enjoy the challenge. This means that high-hopers respond with more positive emotion, are better able to generate mitigations, and/or are better able to reconfigure goals into something else (still meaningful) that is more achievable. 

In addition, ongoing re-analysis of quantitative data we have collected from young people with complex emerging mental health problems provides no evidence that higher levels of hope cause depression, anxiety or poor functioning for vulnerable young people. These young people themselves view enhancing their hope as something that will and does benefit them.

Our current best answer, then, is that hope is helpful, not harmful. Enhancing a person's hope that they can meet their goals actually protects against negative outcomes if they do not obtain them. Thus, hope in and of itself actually increases resilience; something that young people themselves have emphasised in conversations with us (Berry et al., 2021, 2023):

• 'hopefulness provides the mind a little room to wander around; a refuge, in that sense' 
• 'hope is standing strong amidst the chaos' 
• 'looking forward to something, rather than being stuck on the here-and-now'
• 'setting goals and when you achieve them, using them as evidence I can overcome any barriers'

How can we best enhance hope for vulnerable young people?

Snyder suggested that all psychological therapies effectively function through the mechanism of hope – irrespective of the specific approach and techniques, hope is a fundamental 'non-specific' factor that contributes importantly to the generation of positive outcome. This is alongside other non-specific factors such as a positive therapeutic alliance; which arguably is also effective, in part, because it too is a vehicle for increasing hope (Berry et al., 2015). 

However, much of this mechanistic role of hope is implicit, and most vulnerable people (in the UK as globally) have very poor access to effective psychological therapies. Therefore, the question transcends the existing provision of specialist youth support, to a focus on broader and more accessible means of teaching vulnerable young people the skills of hopeful thinking.

In a recent project funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (Berry et al., 2023), we talked with young women not in education employment or training, who were living in areas of UK coastal deprivation, to think more specifically about how to best enhance their hope. We worked with these young women, and their personal and professional supporters, to develop an intervention 'blueprint'. We were particularly interested in an accessible, sustainable, and scalable intervention that could be delivered in the communities in which young women lived, without requiring professional or specialist providers to deliver it.

Overall, these stakeholder groups emphasised the relevance of intervening to enhance hope for this group of young women. They emphasised that the best intervention for enhancing hope is one that is:

• supported by another person, ideally already known to and trusted by the young woman
• gently introduces an explicit focus on hope after building rapport, enhancing positive sense of self and increasing time spent in meaningful activity 
• flexibly and creatively teaches the skills of goal identification, goal-setting, breaking goals down into small steps, and planning how to work towards goals 
• supports understanding of what constitutes hope-enhancing relationships, and helps to increase access to these 

These findings align with those of our previous evidence synthesis on hope-enhancing interventions for young people experiencing depression; that the best hope-enhancing interventions involve a focus on the identification and pursuit of personally-meaningful goals and activities, delivered within a positive and hope-inspiring relational environment. 

This review provided evidence that hope can be enhanced for vulnerable young people using even brief psychological and psychosocial interventions. These interventions can be flexibly deployed across health, education and community settings, by non-expert providers, as a means to increase hope; and in doing so, improve the mental health and social outcomes of vulnerable young people. 

The hope for hope

With colleagues and young people themselves, my aim is to continue to draw attention to hope as an especially relevant lens to better help vulnerable young people to thrive. The basic foundations of this change are much broader than a just focus on designing and implementing discrete interventions for those able to access them. 

As clinicians, researchers, teachers, relatives, friends and community members (as people), we can all help to better embed increased hopefulness in the fabric of young people's lives. We can remember that young people are telling us that hope means something to them, that it matters, and that they would value talking much more about hope. 

We can understand that, for vulnerable young people, talking about goals and the future can be frightening and overwhelming and requires a gentle and sensitive approach. We can better scaffold hopeful thinking in the relationships and interactions we have with all young people, whatever their nature; imbuing them with the implicit belief and explicit communication that we have confidence in young people's ability to work towards their goals and are holding the hope that they will reach them.

Where to find hope

• small pleasures like eating chocolate 
• gardening or spending time outside 
• seeing people work towards collective goals like in the Olympics 
• festivals and celebrations
• religious or spiritual beliefs
• doing meaningful activities
• spending time with loved ones and animals
• the experience of other people believing in you
• hearing stories of other people who have overcome adversity 
• being able to access support services when you need to do so

Dr Clio Berry is Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Evaluation and Improvement at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. [email protected]

Key sources

Berry, C., Fountain, J., Forbes, L., et al. (2023). Developing a hope-focused intervention to prevent mental health problems and improve social outcomes for young women who are not in education, employment or training (NEET): A qualitative co-design study in deprived coastal communities in South-East England. PsyArXiv Prepr. Published online. doi:10.31234/OSF.IO/ZXD46
Berry, C. & Greenwood, K. (2015). Hope-inspiring therapeutic relationships, professional expectations and social inclusion for young people with psychosis. Schizophr Res, 168(1-2), 153-160.
Berry, C. & Greenwood, K. (2018). Beliefs in social inclusion: Invariance in associations among hope, dysfunctional attitudes, and social inclusion across adolescence and young adulthood. Developmental Psychopathology, 30(4), 1403-1419. 
Berry, C., Hodgekins, J., Michelson, D., et al. (2021). A Systematic Review and Lived-Experience Panel Analysis of Hopefulness in Youth Depression Treatment. Adolesc Res Rev 2021, 1, 1-32. 
Berry, C., Othman, E., Tan, J.C. et al. (2109). Assessing social recovery of vulnerable youth in global mental health settings: A pilot study of clinical research tools in Malaysia. BMC Psychiatry, 19(1), 1-13. 
Bonnett, V., Berry, C., Meddings, S. & Holttum, S. (2018). An exploration of young people's narratives of hope following experience of psychosis. Psychosis, 10(2), 99-109.
Gee, B., Berry, C., Hodgekins, J. et al. (2022). A qualitative process evaluation of Social Recovery Therapy for enhancement of social recovery in first-episode psychosis (SUPEREDEN3). Behav Cogn Psychother. Published online.
Snyder, C.R. (2000). Handbook of Hope: Theory, Measures, and Applications. (Snyder CR, ed.). Academic Press.