Chronically Ill Patients Might Be Happier if They Give Up Hope?
U-M Research Shows Chronically Ill Patients Might Be Happier if They Give Up Hope
“Hope is an important part of happiness,” said Peter A. Ubel, M.D., director of the U-M Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine and one of the authors of the happily hopeless study, “but there’s a dark side of hope. Sometimes, if hope makes people put off getting on with their life, it can get in the way of happiness.”
Loewenstein said these results also may explain why people who lose a spouse to death often recover better emotionally over time than those who get divorced.
“If your husband or wife dies, you have closure. There aren’t any lingering possibilities for reconciliation,” Loewenstein said.
Ubel said health professionals find it easier to deliver optimistic news to patients even when they believe the prognosis is unfavorable, justifying it by assuming that holding on to hope was better for the patient.
Said Loewenstein: “It may be easier for a doctor to deliver a hopeful message to a patient, even when there isn’t much objective reason for hope, but it may not be best for the patient.” Read entire article >>
While this makes some sense on a surface level, hopelessness is one of the main symptoms of depression and suicide.
So what is hopelessness?
It is a feeling that conditions will never improve, that there is no solution to a problem, and, for many, a feeling that dying by suicide would be better than living.
Most people who feel hopeless have depression, and untreated depression is the number one cause for suicide. LINK >>
For those who say that when someone is terminally ill, it is cruel to give them any hope—some would submit that miracles do still happen.
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