Hope and Rehabilitation Counseling: Measuring, Building and Nurturing Goals

Often in rehabilitation counseling it’s difficult to understand why one person has successful outcomes while another one does not. Many factors contribute to individual outcomes; however, people with higher hope have been shown to adjust better to disability and the challenges that come with it. 

Goals Drive Hope

Since goals are what drive hope, and identifying and reaching goals are a key component to successful rehabilitation outcomes, understanding a person's level of hope is critical.  Snyder’s Trait Hope Scale is an effective tool to measure and understand levels of hope, including people with depression.

Studies have shown that people with higher levels of hope are better able to deal with depression.  Individuals who have sustained a traumatic physical disability and have lower hope have been found to have higher depressive impairments.  Additional studies with older adults and depression found that those who received hope-focused interventions significantly decreased depressive episodes. Hope-focused interventions include:

• Identify person's hope at beginning of rehabilitation process (Trait Hope Scale)
• Identify what areas person struggles with (goal setting, goal attainment)
• Teach hope to person (effective strategies for goal setting or goal attainment)

Snyder’s Trait Hope Scale has been used with multiple populations, and with different types of disabilities, to better understand levels of hope.  The Trait Hope Scale can assist rehabilitation counselors in identifying and finding solutions in goal attainment of clients.

You can access the full research article in Project E3’s Research Database:
Targeted Communities Research Article Database.

Source: Coduti, W.A., & Schoen, B. (2014). Hope Model: A method of goal attainment with rehabilitation services clients. Journal of Rehabilitation 80(2), 30-40.