
Varieties of Hope
Stories of Sexuality, Shame and Power
Jan Campbell(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 22. July 2025
Book
Hardback
148 pages
978-1-032-84952-2 (ISBN)
Description
This book explores how hope operates as an ambivalent force in relation to issues of sex and gender, power, and identity in both our private and public lives.
The author blends her deep knowledge of psychotherapy and mental health with cultural and philosophical understanding to consider how we have reached our current dilemmas around sex and gender, race, power and identity. Psychoanalysis is put to task in relation to clinical practice, literature, feminism, politics and the understandings of how our personal lives and selves interact with the wider cultural moment we are living through. She explores these issues with compassion and understanding and offers a vision of how we may be able to navigate through widely varying perspectives to a new way of envisioning hope today, as both a false promise and a real and necessary component in our lives and within the clinical encounter.
Drawing on clinical psychoanalytic work as well as literature and memoir, this is essential reading for anyone wanting a psychoanalytically informed understanding of where society is on key issues and where we may be able to get to with hope.
The author blends her deep knowledge of psychotherapy and mental health with cultural and philosophical understanding to consider how we have reached our current dilemmas around sex and gender, race, power and identity. Psychoanalysis is put to task in relation to clinical practice, literature, feminism, politics and the understandings of how our personal lives and selves interact with the wider cultural moment we are living through. She explores these issues with compassion and understanding and offers a vision of how we may be able to navigate through widely varying perspectives to a new way of envisioning hope today, as both a false promise and a real and necessary component in our lives and within the clinical encounter.
Drawing on clinical psychoanalytic work as well as literature and memoir, this is essential reading for anyone wanting a psychoanalytically informed understanding of where society is on key issues and where we may be able to get to with hope.
Reviews / Votes
'What a joy to read Campbell's work Varieties of Hope which, once again, demonstrates the originality of her thinking and the depth of her understanding of the human condition. Her writing does not just evidence the breadth of her knowledge, as she effortlessly moves between literary criticism and psychoanalytic theory but is driven by a desire to shed light on the intractable human dilemmas encountered in the consulting room. Radical, political and clinical this is a book for our time, exploring the very theme that eludes us most today. Campbell's work helps keep hope alive.'Pamela Howard, CPsychol, UKCP reg psychoanalytic psychotherapist, programme director, Counselling and Psychotherapy, principal lecturer in Psychotherapy, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Brighton
'One of the best compliments it is possible to pay a writer, or therapist for that matter, is "Well, I never thought of it that way before". This collection of essays by Jan Campbell leads the reader to precisely that sentiment time and again. Hope is a vital component in human affairs. Campbell's exploration of hope, its varieties and its subterfuges, considers what literature and psychoanalysis can tell us about hope under attrition and its capacities for regeneration. Perhaps not paradoxically, Campbell's themes occupy the shadow side of contemporary politics and culture, including some of its major legal and medical controversies. It is a commonplace to say this or that book is timely - though this one undoubtedly is. Some varieties of hope, after all, are simply better and more pressing than others. As we are constantly being told, and not for the first time, hope is in short supply. And in that "and not for the first time", perhaps, lies a source of hope in itself.'
Roger Lippin, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor (UKCP registered), M.Sc., C.Q.S.W
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
General, Postgraduate, and Professional Practice & Development
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
346 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-84952-2 (9781032849522)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
07/2025
1st Edition
Routledge
€31.20
Shipment within 10-20 days

E-Book
07/2025
Routledge
€25.99
Available for download

E-Book
07/2025
Routledge
€25.99
Available for download
Person
Jan Campbell is a psychoanalyst and writer with over 25 years in practice. She was a Reader in English Literature and Psychoanalysis and Ex member of Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. She has written extensively on psychoanalysis in relation to theory, practice, motherhood, feminism and cultural studies.
Content
01. Varieties of Hope 02. The Shame-Shell 03. Sadomasochism and Everyday Life 04. The Mother of Hope 05. Nobody Knows 06. Beyond Reparation