In an age when many thinkers cultivate despair, William F. Lynch offers the sharpest of contrasts - an existential analysis of hope as the very center of man. With penetrating insight, he describes dilemmas of hopelessness - the ravages of the absolutizing instinct - the importance, even for adults, of being able to depend on others - the experience of alienation - the threat of neo-gnosticism. Most important, he delineates a way out... a psychology of hope that is truly pioneering.