Please join us for a lecture given by Catherine Rioux from Université Laval.

As philosophers and theorists from nursing and social work have stressed, “falling into despair” can take different forms: one can lose particular hopes for specific outcomes, or one can lose a more basic, antecedent sense that the future holds worthwhile possibilities. How can those in supportive roles to a person who has fallen into such deep despair help them shift their sense of the future while respecting both their agency and limitations? Our answer centers on the imagination. Drawing on some interdisciplinary insights, we argue for the need for a collaborative, imaginative process grounded in empathy, which we call “imagining-with.”