The Nature of Hope
Understanding, Practicing, and Experiencing Hope in Neurorehabilitation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/pl.v47i1.171930Keywords:
hope, hopelessness, acquired brain injury, rehabilitation, the phenomenology of hopeAbstract
This article seeks to empirically “unmute” hope by exploring it as a lived and embodied phenomenon rather than an abstract concept. While hope is fundamental to human life, it embodies a paradox: it can persist even when circumstances appear hopeless. Often subtle and unarticulated in everyday contexts, hope becomes particularly salient when serious illness disrupts life. Drawing on six months of ethnographic fieldwork among individuals with acquired brain injury, their relatives, and neurorehabilitation professionals, the article examines how hope is understood, practiced, and experienced in neurorehabilitation. The study conceptualizes hope as dynamic and relational. Hope takes both concrete and existential forms and is deeply social, nurtured through relationships with others, nature, and for some, higher powers. It functions as a vital, motivating force that sustains action and continuity, yet it can also be fragile and threatened. The analysis shows how hope is nurtured, negotiated, depleted, and carried forward over time. Caring for hope emerges not merely as an individual endeavour, but as a shared practice and a collective task in neurorehabilitation.
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