"Hope to See the Soul": The Relationship Between Spirituality and Hope.

This research extends recent studies of spirituality and hope from a patient perspective, building on the analysis of an auto-ethnographic self-story of a cancer patient. A connection has been highlighted in the literature that forms a relationship between spirituality and hope. This study suggests that hope is generated through a dynamic and relational process of doing hope together with others. The trauma of illness can cause a dramatic situation of despair in which terrified and worried voices become the norm. Sacred meetings in connection with others can replace these terrified voices with hopeful ones. These meetings are established through people being witnesses to the situation, alleviating the suffering through presence and reflection, for the patient to become reconciled with oneself and experience something beyond the situation as sacred.