91 Pathway of Hope: What hope does for our minds and bodies with Dr. Suzanne Phillips

This season, we’re discovering The Salvation Army’s Pathway of Hope—a national initiative to provide individualized services to families with children, addressing their immediate material needs and providing long-term engagement to stop the cycle of poverty.

Last week, we heard from a smalltown service center director about what it takes to deliver Pathway of Hope support day-to-day along with a current participant in the initiative. 

But let’s take a step back. What is hope?  

Kierkegaard called it a passion for the possible. Psychologist C.R. Snyder said it’s a reservoir of determination. Emily Dickinson said it’s the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tunes without the words. 

It’s hope. 

And it’s an essential ingredient, part of the namesake of The Salvation Army’s Pathway of Hope. 

Dr. Suzanne Phillips is a licensed Psychologist, Psychoanalyst, and Fellow and Co-chair of Community Outreach for the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA). She has been a psychologist for more than 35 years and is a newly retired Adjunct Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at LIU Post, a private university in New York.

And as someone in the business of hope, she’s on the show to help us better understand hope and what it does psychologically and physiologically—plus how we can recognize it and find more of it in our lives. 

It’s not magic, she says, but a mindset, a propeller for action and possibility. And, it’s contagious. 

EPISODE SHOWNOTES: Read more.

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