Hoping Against Hope

August 20, 2012

Interview with Karen Krett, author of the book The Dark Side of Hope: A Psychological Investigation and Cultural Commentary

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Mike Carruthers:
Hope is that wonderful emotion that sustains us in difficult times but clinging to hope when things are hopeless can be a problem.

Karen Krett:
We’re taught in our culture that hopelessness is deplorable we’re not supposed to ever be hopeless. So there’s the cultural force that propels us to keep hoping even when there’s no possibility.
 

Psychologist Karen Krett, author of the book The Dark Side of Hope... 

It’s the case that we can make wonderful things happen by engaging our hope - if there is even the smallest possibility that it will occur. But when we’re up against something like changing another person into someone that they’re not, which is really one of the ways that happens a lot, we can hope and hope forever and I’ll we’ll ever get is disappointments and grief.

There’s a sense today in our culture because of books like The Secret that if you hope and believe in something enough you can make it happen. And that hope can take the place of taking action.

Which is a very childish kind of approach to reality – I’ve had people in my office who were in terrible distress because they believed that if they just changed their feelings, changed their thoughts and hoped for something that it would happen – because they believed what they read.