Archive for December, 2024
What is the difference between being open to one’s anger and venting that anger?
When we are open to the depth of our anger, we are not acting out the anger. We are looking at it as honestly as possible so we can make the informed decision regarding how to reduce it. When we vent, we are acting on the emotion of anger, which can include intense language and behavior.
What is the general effect of, as you say, “diminishing of the resentment in the client’s heart”?
Our research shows that as the resentment lessens, as shown in our forgiveness scale (assessing the degree to which a person reduces negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, all of which point to different dimensions of resentment, and increases positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward the one who behaved unjustly), there is a concomitant decrease in anxiety and psychological depression and an increase in self-esteem. In other words, the reduced resentment and the increase in the positive issues toward the other person seem to lead to improved mental health more generally.
What is the difference between using insight in therapy and forgiveness therapy? For example, Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic approach is to make that which is unconscious now conscious. I know there is more to psychoanalysis than this, but it is a core issue in that kind of mental health treatment. How does forgiveness therapy differ from making that which is unconscious now conscious?
Forgiveness therapy in the Uncovering Phase of this approach does try to bring to consciousness the effects of unjust treatment onto the person’s physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual well-being. Once the negative effects of the unjust treatment are uncovered (made conscious), the point is not to leave the treatment there but now to shift the focus to the one who acted unfairly, to expand one’s view of the other. The point is to help the client develop even a small amount of compassion, through mercy, toward this person. The result tends to be the diminishing of the resentment in the client’s heart.
Can you point me to one example from your studies in which anger diminished and stayed that way for many months following forgiveness therapy?
Yes, here is a reference to a research study that we did with men in a maximum-security correctional context. All of them were clinically angry at the pretest. At post-test, six months later, they went to normal levels of anger. At the six-month follow-up (six months after the post-test), they still were at the normal level of anger. Here is that reference:
Yu, L., Gambaro, M., Song, J., Teslik, M., Song, M., Komoski, M.C., Wollner, B., & Enright, R.D. (2021). Forgiveness therapy in a maximum-security correctional institution: A randomized clinical trial. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2583
One of my colleagues said this about relaxation training: “It is only the tip of the iceberg.” In other words, there is a lot more to anger reduction than relaxed muscles. Why do you think this is the case?
I think this is the case because, once the client gets up off the couch from relaxing, there is a tendency for the anger to re-emerge in the heart. This is the case because the injustice is still a focus for the client, and that focus tends to have the anger come back after the relaxation ends. Forgiveness therapy tends to reduce the resentment (toward the one who behaved unjustly) and this then leads to a significant reduction in the anger that tends to stay away in the long term.