An Intervention Model to Help Clients to Seek Their Own Hope Experiences: The Narrative Communication Model of Hope Seeking Intervention

Kim, Dal Sook; Kim, Hesook Suzie; Thorne, Sally

Abstract

The paper describes The Narrative Communication Model of Hope Seeking Intervention developed by the authors as an approach to help clients to have individually specific hope experiences. The Model is founded upon the existential conceptualization of hope that views hope as subjective, unique experiences of meaning and processes. The Model has been developed based on the findings both in the literature and the authors' work on the nature of hope and hope experiences and integrating the concept of hope as subjective meanings and experiences, the processes of story-telling and the concept of narrative configuration as a way to engage in person-specific experiences, and person-centered communication. The results of the experiences with the application of the model in a study are used to clarify the model further. The Model incorporating story-telling and narrative construction through person-centered communication is identified in three components-the story-telling, the narrative intervention, and the communication components. These components are processed as an intervention to culminate into person-specific hope experiences in which active participation of clients as the story-teller and of interventionist as the communicative facilitator is required to produce narratives of hope with individual specific thematic plots that become the basis for hope experiences. The application of the Model has shown positive outcomes in clients with successful seeking of own hope experiences. The success of the Model application seems to depend upon interventionists' understanding of the model and the competency with the application of person-centered communication strategies.