Sources of hope in chronic illness

Abstract

Chronic illness is a form of suffering from which cure is unlikely but healing is possible. This paper reflects on the emotion of ‘hope’ in the context of such illnesses. Using Arthur Frank’s illness narrative types as a framework, it begins with sociological critiques of the discourse of hope in media stories about cancer (‘false hopes’). It considers the contrast between stories of ‘loss of self’ and ‘transcendence of self’ in the sociological literature on chronic illness. It links hope with ethical action (living for others) and with embodied experiences of security and love. Referring to a medieval account of hope in the midst of suffering (Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love), it demonstrates that the theistic strand in the history of western thought and experience remains important in the social construction of the contemporary self and in people’s capacity to face adversity without despair.