Articles by John Sharry

Cultivating hope and managing despair

Copy of chapter that was published in book  Fleeing Vesuvius  Overcoming the Risks of Economic and Environmental Collapse By John Sharry Societies are struggling to come to terms with the nature and extent of the changes facing them both now and in the future. Modern psychological models of motivation and change, and of how people … Continue reading Cultivating hope and managing despair

Creating a sustainable, viable, future path for civilisation

John Sharry’s paper ‘Hope in the Face of Disaster ‘ presented at Social Justice Ireland’s social policy conference 2013 ‘A Future Worth Living For’. Summary Taking a long term view, this paper explores the many crises that civilisation and humanity will face over the coming decades some of which are already starting to have an … Continue reading Creating a sustainable, viable, future path for civilisation

Hope in Hard Times: 1

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out” – Vaclav Havel

ASIDE FROM the political and societal fallout of the recession, the ongoing crisis has taken its toll on the mental health of the nation.

Hope in Hard Times: 2

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”  Viktor E Frankl

Hope in Hard Times: 3

“Hope is something you create together” – Kaethe Weingarten

PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH highlights the importance of hope as an essential precondition to human happiness, particularly in the face of loss, change and adversity. While hope is often considered an individual human trait or feeling, family therapist Kaethe Weingarten has conceived it as a shared creation between people.