Relational Hope

a systemic conception of hope as a factor of therapeutic change in brief therapy

Abstract

Hope is considered as a common and curative factor in psychotherapy and with many health benefits in general, however, its conceptualization is limited and mainly cognitive and individual in the investigation of results and processes in psychotherapy, and from family therapy there are few developments, with the exception of the concept of reasonable hope, which incorporates the relational dimension, but is limited in some aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to broaden the conception of the factor of change towards a relational dimension, since it involves contextual, historical and relational variables, emphasizing its collaborative nature. On the other hand, the conceptualization of the therapeutic relationship from post-structuralist clinical practices in systemic therapy presents coherence, and from these same models and their theoretical foundations, it is possible to extend the conceptualization of hope towards a collaborative dimension. In these mentioned practices, relational hope is present forming a framework with the therapeutic relationship by configuring an axis or core of “Hope-relationship”, which would be at the center of the brief models of the systemic tradition. This work is a bibliographic review that focuses on conceptual and theoretical elaboration, based on both articles of recent years, approximately 10 years, and basic texts on the field.