Hope Theory: How Pathways Thinking Can Help Your Clients

Watching the news, I sometimes feel hopeless about how humans treat one another and the environment we share.
And yet, when I step into the world, connect with others, and witness everyday acts of kindness, I find myself filled with hope. Ultimately, it’s a choice. We can choose hope over despair, desperation, and despondency (Snyder, 2002).
Rick Snyder’s hope theory (2000) recognizes hope as an ongoing and dynamic process involving goal-directed energy and planning to meet those goals (Colla et al., 2022).
This article explores the importance of hope theory in positive psychology and highlights how pathway thinking can help drive meaningful change.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our five positive psychology tools for free. These engaging, science-based exercises will help you effectively deal with difficult circumstances and give you the tools to improve the resilience of your clients, students, or employees.