Changes in adolescent and parent hopefulness in psychotherapy: effects on adolescent outcomes as evaluated by adolescents, parents, and therapists

Abstract

We examined the role of hope in the behavioral and socioemotional outcomes of adolescents referred to psychotherapy. Adolescents (n = 3517), aged 12–17 years, and their parents rated adolescents’ behavior problems, adolescents’ adaptive behavior, and their own subjective experience of hopefulness at intake and at 3-month follow-up. Therapists also rated adolescents’ behavior problems and adaptive behavior at intake and follow-up. Adolescents who reported increased hopefulness during treatment showed significantly fewer problems and significantly greater adaptive behavior at follow-up than adolescents who reported stable or decreased hopefulness. Similarly, adolescents’ outcomes were significantly associated with parents’ change in hopefulness during treatment. Results were consistent for adolescent, parent, and therapist ratings of outcomes. Our findings provide some of the first empirical evidence for the importance of hopefulness in the psychosocial treatment of adolescents and highlight the need to attend to hopefulness in both youths and their parents.

Keywords:

• hope theory
• hope therapy
• psychotherapy outcomes
• adolescents
• parents

Acknowledgements

This research project was supported, in part, by the William G. Bowen and Mary Ellen Bowen Endowment and by the Ohio Department of Mental Health. We thank Dee Roth, Jim Healy, and Kwok Kwan Tam, Ohio Department of Mental Health Office of Program Evaluation and Research, for their help with data collection and preparation.