Hope Fatigue: An Emerging Concept in Mental Health

Hope is one of the fundamental emotions that shapes individuals' motivations and search for meaning for the future. Since people consider hopelessness as a terrible state of mind, they continue to hope at the expense of deceiving themselves. In this respect, giving up hope means giving up on life for many people. In addition, adopting a forced hope defines the dark side of hope. The dark side of hope distances the person from reality and has the potential to pull them into sudden and deep despair. These cycles make us think that there is no other option than choosing hope or despair. However, hope fatigue is at an important point as an alternative state of mind against the sharp boundaries of hope and hopelessness. In addition to being a source of strength for individuals, hope can also turn into a source of fatigue under the ideology of being constantly positive in the modern world despite unfulfilled expectations, constant goal-setting pressure, and a social collapse. Accordingly, it becomes inevitable for individuals to experience hope fatigue. Hope fatigue not only creates an emotional collapse in individuals, but also leads to loss of motivation and disappointments at the social level. In addition to its negative effects, it also has the power to provide individuals with the opportunity to make evaluations before falling into the pit of hopelessness, which is quite difficult to get out of, and to draw a different direction in their lives. From this perspective, the concept of hope fatigue is addressed in this study within the framework of hopelessness, burnout, learned helplessness and positive psychology issues and is discussed in its various dimensions. The main purpose of the study is to address hope fatigue, to present a definition and conceptualization for it, and to offer some suggestions to researchers and practitioners working in the field. Based on this, it is emphasized that the concept of hope fatigue should be further investigated in the field of mental health and supported by interventions, and it is expected that the concept will make an original contribution to the literature.