What about a client that uses despair as hope?

Keirkegaard talks about despair and hope in this way:

Hopelessness and unwillingness to hope. Is weakness despair or is despair defiance?Despair involves the loss of meaning for the self.Thus, despair is an unwillingness to hope.In this unwillingness we find a form of defiance that opposes hope.

Staying hopeless is a protection as when we hope and are disappointed it hurts.

What might you try to help a client who is using hopelessness to protect them from disappointment?

Bernier, M. (2015)Despair and Hope: The Task of Hope in Kierkegaard. Retrieved August 4, 2022 from https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198747888.003.0004. (Original work published 2015)