ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how hopelessness and hope are represented and communicated within the psychoanalytic treatments of six children; Georgie, Rose, Lizzie, Anita, Sara, and Helen. Spitz shocked the medical community with his videos of "hopeless" children. He formulated the term "anaclitic depression" to describe infants after six months of age who experienced prolonged separations from their primary caregiver and developed symptoms of weeping, apathy, inactivity, withdrawal, sleep problems, weight loss, and developmental regressions. Boris stated: "If one searches the literature hope itself is nowhere to be seen. This is no accident. Growing up means acknowledging that the people you love the most, your parents, will eventually disappoint and let you down, and ultimately abandon you through death. To love in a committed fashion, over time, is to hope; and to hope is to impart value in an inevitably uncertain future".
