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What role does the dynamic of hope play in one's healing and overall health and well-being? This question continues to take on more meaning as health care approaches become more integrated and holistic.

This seminar offers participants the opportunity to explore the role of hope, future stories, and the creation of narratives of hope. Using email, seminar participants will explore the role of hope through reflective dialogue around three presentations in light of their own experience and context. Through this process the group benefits by learning from one another as well as from the presentations.

 

Presentations (one per week):

• "Constructing Hopeful Narratives" by Dr. Richard Hester

• "Hope and future stories" by Dr. Andy Lester

• "The many faces of hope and healing" by Dr. Jann Aldredge-Clanton
  
  (Two of these presentations are available only as part of the seminar offering. This topic is not available as a self-study learning module.)

Facilitator:

Learning Objectives:

1. Acknowledge the value of one's story as a means for restoring and creating a new and hopeful vision of reality.

2. Strengthen the therapeutic process through communication about hope and one's vision of their future.

3. Recognize the dynamic of "hope" as an important factor impacting their patient, parishioner, or client's physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

4. Recognize how a person's thoughts and feelings toward the future can impact his or her physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

5. Utilize one's sacred story and images as a context in which future stories can be transformed from despairing to hopeful.

6. Identify future stories that give one courage to move into new dimensions of life.
7. Encourage others to find meaning in a broader definition of "healing" that goes beyond cure.
8. Be aware of how their own spiritual/theological perspectives may impact the therapeutic process for their client, patient, or parishioner.