The power of hope: person-centered perspectives on contemporary personal and societal challenges

Abstract

Hope is not about the future. It denotes an existential human way of being and way of being within the present. 'Dum spiro, spero (As long as I breathe, I hope)' characterizes its fundamental aspect in life. Hope is not optimism towards the outlook, not an expectation of positive outcomes. Hope is a specific quality of being a person in the meaning of being fully oneself and being fully with others. It is more than human’s capability to counterbalance fear and despair by envisioning something better and different from endurance. Rather, it is an active stance, the art of being fully present – with others. Thus, hope is a person-centered essential. It can be understood as the voice of the actualizing tendency, because it rests on the belief that potentiality is as important as actuality. Beyond the meaning of hope as a competence of the person, its importance in life and therapy the paper discusses how the present societal and political challenges can be met by a person-centered understanding of hope and trust: the task is not to raise hopes, but to facilitate hope; not to aim at solutions in order to change the world, but to encounter it.