Hope versus nursing

Hope is an essential dimension of life. Hope, according to Marcel’s thinking, is the act by which the temptation to despair is actively overcome. Hope comes alive when confronting life’s trials, darkness, illness and separation. Marcel differentiates “I hope” from “I hope that”. Hope as a central construct for nursing has been analysed, defined, and studied by the nursing theorist Jean Watson in her Theory of Human Caring, and Kaye Herth with her strategies (Herth Hope Index). These strategies are based on Marcel’s existential notion that human beings have an endless possibility of improving their own being.