Combating Helplessness

I recently read the chapter on weeds in Michael Pollan’s book Second Nature and it seemed to me that there are some parallels between weeds and hopelessness, especially for those who live in the country’s nursing homes. I have been counseling nursing home residents for the past 12 years and in that time I have worked with people who have had such a profound sense of hopelessness that it seemed almost tangible. When I first started working with people in this state I would often leave the room feeling exhausted and like some of my own hope had been drained from me.

These experiences got me thinking a lot about hope and about why it is important to keep the flame of hope lit – even if it is just the pilot light. It seems to me that hope is what keeps us going even when we can see no ostensible reason to do so. So we must be vigilant and combat threats as they arise.

This is where the analogy to weeds comes in – if we have one or two weeds in our garden they are easy to ignore and they may even blend in with the other plants so as to be unnoticeable. However, as more weeds appear, they can no longer be ignored and if not dealt with they can easily take control of the garden. So it is with hopelessness – with losses and disappointments comes threats to our hope for the future. For many of us this is a normal part of life - we experience some feelings of hopelessness which we may ignore expecting that they will resolve without much special effort from us. However, if the situational factors support the spread of hopelessness and we continue to do nothing the insidious effect of hopelessness can take over our lives.

The sooner you begin to tackle the weed problem the better the chances of success, so it is with hopelessness. Nevertheless, it is always possible to make progress in the fight, and even when all seems lost improvement can be made. Most gardeners have their preferred tools for tackling a job and psychologists are no different. The choice of tools has a lot to do with how they have worked in the past and how comfortable we using them.

One of the most effective tools I have found in combating hopelessness is to change the subject. How I go out doing this varies based on the person I am working with and my relationship with them. Sometimes I will explain what tool I am using and what I expect it to do, and at other times I will subtly introduce the tool with no mention of its presence.

In nursing homes it is common to hear complaints about everything from family not visiting to the food that is served. I find that these complaints, while usually justified, serve to nourish hopelessness, so I will work to refocus the person to more positive themes. One of my favorite positive themes is gratitude and I will ask the person to tell me about the things that they are grateful for. I have found most people responsive to this intervention, but I have had a few people say that they could not think of anything that they were grateful for. When this happens I encourage them to think about things from the past that they are grateful for and I have not yet come across a person who has failed to find something they are grateful for. The wonderful thing about gratitude is that it is incompatible with hopelessness. You cannot in the same moment feel gratitude and hopelessness, and so in that moment it provides a person with respite and nourishes the seeds of hope (the stuff we want growing in our garden).

There are other great tools to fight hopelessness and so if, like me, you encounter hopelessness in your interactions with those you care for weed assiduously and do not let hope die.