Conduct a Hope Audit

Therapists can then conduct a Hope Audit, a formal assessment of hope, or a general discussion about how the pivot point has depleted hope in five specific needs areas. The areas mirror an upside-down Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You can conduct a Hope Audit using different methods:

1) Interview: The therapist can interview clients and ask questions such as the following.  

· Meaning: How have clients lost a sense of meaning and hope in life? How can clients begin to make a meaningful contribution to the world?

· Engagement: How have clients become less engaged in life? How can clients develop or rediscover skills and talents that will lead to a path of hope?

· Accomplishment: How can clients begin to feel good about themselves so far? How can clients prepare for future successes?

· Relationships: How have clients' relationships changed? How can clients foster additional meaningful and collaborative relationships?

· Control: How have clients lost a sense of control in life? How can they regain this control so that they are more hopeful? 

This assessment evaluates where clients are currently functioning. It can also help therapists select suitable activities to assist their clients in mitigating problems.

2) Continuum: The therapist can determine, for each of the five categories, how clients’ levels of hope (Meaning, Engagement, Accomplishment, Relationships, and Control) can be interpreted using the following continuum:  

0 = Limited Hope

5 = Hope

10 = Extreme or Transcendent Hope

3) Formal Assessment: Therapists can use the Hope Scale to assess three areas of clients’ functioning. The Hope Scale is reproducible and included in all Positive Psychology—The Hope Series workbooks, available at www.wholeperson.com. The Hope Scale is reliable and valid, and can therefore be used as a post-test to assess improvement.