Focus of Support Group
John Hopkins Medicine: In healthcare hope has the ability to help people heal faster and easier. Individuals, who maintain hope, especially when battling illness, significantly enhance their chances of recovery. This is important because numerous people with chronic, physical, or mental illness believe that their condition is not stable and that they have little chance of recovery. If health care providers begin to recognize the importance of hope in the recovery process, then they can learn to instill hope within their patients; this would enable patients to develop healthy coping strategies and therefore improve their physical and emotional well-being. Shaping people’s beliefs and expectations to be more hopeful and optimistic is an essential component of positive psychology. In general, people who possess hope and think optimistically have a greater sense of well-being in addition to the improved health outcomes outlined above. Positive psychologists teach strategies to help boost people’s hope and optimism, which would benefit individuals coping with illness by improving their life satisfaction and recovery process.