A somewhat more “scientific” approach to Adaptive Hope is offered by Casey Gwinn (a jurist) and Chan Hellman (a social worker) (Gwinn and Hellman, 2022. P. 9) who declare that: “Hope is the belief that your future can be brighter and better than your past and that you actually have role to play in making it better.”
Adopting a more humanistic perspective than most of the AA-type programs, and building on the foundations of the positive psychological stance already identified in this essay, Gwinn and Hellman (2022, p. 9) go on to distinguish between people who are hopeful and those who are merely wishful:
“Hopeful people embrace this truth [about a brighter future] with all of their being. Wishful people also believe their future can brighter than their past, but they don’t have any goals or critical thinking going on to help make their futures better. Hopeful people are willing to work for their better future. Wishful people aren’t willing to do the work necessary to have hope and a better. . . future.”
Gwinn and Hellman provide ample guidance regarding how to the hopeful goals and how best to work toward realization of these goals in the future. Fundamental to this perspective and set of practices regarding “the science of hope” is an assumption that things were not so great in the past. There is a strong motivation to set goals regarding a better future because the past was lacking something—or was often filled with abuse, pain or at least disappointment. It is highly adaptive to work for a better future if one has experienced an undesirable past.
Evolutionary progress occurs because human beings are not satisfied with an undesirable condition. They don’t just adjust to this unfavorable condition, as do many other organisms; rather, they seek to change these conditions or move to someplace more desirable. This is one of the most important adaptive advantages of human evolution (though it should be noted that the desire for improvement can also lead to actions taken at the expense of other human beings, other organisms and an entire environment).
While Gwinn and Hellman take a more secular approach than do the AA-oriented practitioners, they also take a more cerebral approach than do many other human service providers who work with those seeking to leave behind an undesirable (often abusive) past. For some of these providers, Hope is founded on a very emotional basis—in many ways to combat the strong emotions I have already identified in this essay. For instance, Hope might be embedded in the unleashing of an emotional and behavioral Tiger (Levine and Frederick, 2009). Given that undesirable conditions are often associated with helplessness regarding the ability to approve things, a strong emotion and set of actions might be required to overturn this helplessness. The most undesirable of conditions (resulting in trauma) are often based on the inability to protect against attack and abuse.
