The first developmental crisis that confronts each infant between birth and one-and-a-half years old is trust versus mistrust of parents. If nurturing, warm, affectionate care is given, if the immediate environment and the parent figures are experienced as dependable, children learn to trust and consequently are optimistic. They become hopeful because their earliest significant parent figures are reliable and caring.

Hope is the virtue or power that develops from the successful resolution of the internal conflict about whether it is safe to trust parents. Hope is the belief that certain wishes are attainable in spite of everything. Once established as part of the personality of the child, hope can later sustain a person even when trust seems unrealistic. The capacity to hope is at the center of being human. It is a feeling or belief that solutions to most problems are possible and that dreams for a better future have a chance of being realized.

When people are without hope, they lose interest in the future and often lose the energy to face even simple daily tasks. Of course, some things cannot be changed no matter how high the hope. At a time like that, trusting persons, in spite of unhappiness, still hope to make the best of the situation.

Some of these people may be overly trusting. They see the world through rose-colored glasses. Life may have been “ideal” when they were children, so they trust everyone and continue to trust them when clear evidence shows some people are not trustworthy. Gullible and naive, unwilling to think critically about a person or situation, these people may collapse when they recognize the truth.

People who do not gain a basic sense of trust in infancy and thus develop the power of hope, may go through life feeling incomplete, empty, and distrustful of others. Those who do experience basic trust early in life may, in the process of growing up, lose it because of some tragedy or crisis. They may then live life feeling deeply lonely, wondering whether it is ever safe to trust again.

The inability to trust often leads to a pervading sense of depression that interferes with healthy development. Children, who are abandoned, whether by death or desertion, also may lack the strength to trust and hope unless they have loyal substitute parents. Children who are consistently ignored, seldom touched, brutalized, or starved may not develop at a normal rate.

In later life, such people may expect others to ignore them or be untrustworthy in some other way. Because of this underlying fear, they may choose as spouse or friend someone who is actually trustworthy and then act in such negative ways that the other person leaves the relationship out of desperation. Or, without ample degrees of trust and hope, they may cling to someone from an overly dependent position that restricts their own freedom to develop autonomy.

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