Abstract
Is hope an emotion or a virtue? Is a patient’s hope measurable? Philosophers and healthcare researcher have differed in their approaches and answers to such questions, but some areas of greater clarity and convergence seem to be emerging. The dynamics of hope, despair, and hopelessness have been more clearly delineated. Hope is neither simply an emotion nor a propositional attitude. It may be understood by patients either as determined by the doctor or in the power of the patient. The clinical and therapeutic relevance of hope and despair depend less on measuring hope in patients than on listening to the individual patient.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Benzein E, Norberg A, Savemann B (2001) The meaning of the lived experience of hope in patients with cancer in palliative home care. Palliat Med 15:117–126
Canguilhem G (1991) The normal and the pathological. Zone Books, New York, p 196f
Corbett M, Foster NE, Ong BN (2007) Living with low back pain – stories of hope and despair. Soc Sci Med 65:1584–1594
Day JP (1969) Hope. Am Philos Q 6(2):89–102
Day JP (1998) More about hope and fear. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 1(1):121–123
Dorcy KS (2010) Hegemony, hermeneutics, and the heuristic of hope. Adv Nurs Sci 33(1):78–90
Eliott J, Olver I (2002) The discursive properties of “Hope”: a qualitative analysis of cancer patients’ speech. Qual Health Res 12(2):173–193
Eliott J, Olver I (2007) Hope and hoping in the talk of dying cancer patients. Soc Sci Med 64:138–149
Eliott J, Olver I (2009) Hope, life, and death: a qualitative analysis of dying cancer patients’ talk about hope. Death Stud 33:609–638
Kylmä J (2005) Despair and hopelessness in the context of HIV – a metasynthesis on qualitative research findings. J Clin Nurs 14:813–821
Kylmä J, Vehviläinen-Julkunen K (1997) Hope in nursing research: a meta-analysis of the ontological and epistemological foundations of research on hope. J Adv Nurs 25:364–371
Kylmä J, Vehviläinen-Julkunen K, Lähdevirta J (2001) Hope, despair and hopelessness in living with HIV/AIDS: a grounded theory study. J Adv Nurs 33(6):764–775
Lohne V (2008) The battle between hoping and suffering. Adv Nurs Sci 31(3):237–248
Macquarrie J (1978) Christian hope. Mowbray, Oxford
McGee RF (1984) Hope: a factor influencing crisis resolution. Adv Nurs Sci 6:34–44
Miller JF, Powers MJ (1988) Development of an instrument to measure hope. Nurs Res 37(1):6–10
Mittleman A (2009) Hope in a democratic age. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Morse JM, Penrod J (1999) Linking concepts of enduring, uncertainty, suffering and hope. Image J Nurs Sch 31(2):145–150
Stempsey WF (2014) Hope for health and health care. Med Health Care Philos. doi:10.1007/s11019-014-9572-y
Waterworth JM (2004) A philosophical analysis of hope. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills
Woodring C (ed) (1990) The collected works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol 14, Table talk I. Routledge, London, p 331
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Boyd, K. (2017). Hope, Despair, and Other Strategies of Patients. In: Schramme, T., Edwards, S. (eds) Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8688-1_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8688-1_25
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8687-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8688-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities