8 Ways to Hope: Charting a Path through Uncertain Times

by William R. Miller

You can't take a leap of faith without it. It lets you dream of a brighter future. And in a world worn down by political conflict, climate change, war, and other perils, many worry about losing it. Pioneering psychologist William R. Miller takes a fresh look at hope and its transformative potential in this concise, compassionate book. Explore eight different facets of hope that enable people to clarify their goals, envision new possibilities, find purpose, enhance motivation, and persevere against tough odds. Dr. Miller guides you to reflect on your own relationship to hope and how you can cultivate it. Vivid personal stories, historical examples, and cutting-edge scientific findings reveal how choosing hope over fear can be a powerful force for change.


 

196 pages, Paperback

Published August 12, 2024

About the author

William Richard Miller is an American clinical psychologist, an emeritus distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Miller and Stephen Rollnick are the co-founders of motivational interviewing.

Reviews

[Maggie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Felt like a general overview that many average people would already know. I was hoping for some practical ways to elicit hope in clients or more than just a general overview of what is believed to make up hope. Working with chronically depressed/hopeless folks, this book doesn’t necessarily seem helpful for this population due to them already knowing a lot of this information but it being difficult to apply it to their life.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

disclaimer that I know the author slightly and am (favorably) cited in chapter 1, but I think I can be objective. Very good, engaging, concise analysis of distinguishable aspects of hope (dispositional optimism, situation-specific estimate of favorable probabilities, wishing for good outcomes, waiting patiently to get thru bad times, etc. etc. etc.).

Blends research review, anecdotes, literary allusions, history, and a small, welcome dose of relevant autobiography (I hadn't known he was an adoptive parent for instance). He started out wanting to be a pastor and has written quite a bit about mutual influences of psychological theorizing and religion/spirituality, incl. from time to time in this book. Whatever you think of motivational interviewing, behavioral self-control training for heavy drinkers, etc. etc., I think anybody would find Bill Miller to be a wise person and calming presence, and his persona comes thru well in this one.

Now for my minor quibbles:

1. Maybe at behest of publisher (?), he sort of grafts on a self-help angle [e.g., little shaded boxes with questions for reflection, like in a section on when persistence is futile: "Can you think of a time in your life when you kept trying too long, too often, too hard to make something happen?" [p. 112]]. I'd be shocked if this minimal guidance actually proved to be of lasting benefit to anyone with a real concern in this vein. If for some reason a rich person decides to bankroll a publishing house and let me run it, I'd encourage them to bypass that sort of approach. There's a market for lay-accessible writeups of psych research and its implications without pretending that it's a self-help book.

2. What's with the tiny print? Old people read books too! Almost needed a magnifying glass.

3. I got this as a comp copy for having done a prepublication review of something else, so I suppose it's churlish to criticize a prepub reviewer of this one, but.........the one front-cover blurb is Adam Grant's "Dr. Miller is a trailblazer in psychology", which was obvious almost 50 years before publication of, and has nothing specifically to do with, this book. I hope that was excerpted clumsily from a longer statement, or else Dr. Grant should have to send back his copy.

[Heiki Eesmaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly erudite, covering so many different fields of research, which does come off a little on the rambling side. Still, the ways the facets of hope are linked together overall do work compositionally.

[Jenn McEvoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this personal development book a lot. The information wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before but, I gained knowledge on a few things I didn’t think about prior to this book. It was a positive book that helped me understand a little more about Hope.

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. I highly recommend it.

[Brian White · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm read this for a book group so I felt obligated to finish it. The information is fine but not particularly original. The writing is really dull. There are better books out there on this subject.