Author Archive: directorifi

I consider myself to be somewhat shy and quiet. I know I should beg someone to forgive me, but I find it so difficult. What advice would you provide me to help me finish this?

It’s brave of you to want to ask for forgiveness already. So please keep that in mind. It’s not necessary to ask in person. Have you considered sending an email or letter as a beginning point? This gives you the chance to put your actions in writing, together with your thoughts on why your actions were unjust and how they affected the other person. You then can add a written apology and ask the person to forgive you.

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In Memoriam: A Tribute to Our Long-Time Board Member and Friend, Msgr. John Hebl

On March 11, 2024, our International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) lost our Board Member and friend, Msgr. John Hebl, who passed away at his home in Oxford, Wisconsin. He joined our IFI in 1994 and gave us 30 years of wonderful service with his wisdom and passion for forgiveness. He is an important figure in forgiveness science because he was the very first person, in the entire history of psychology, who did an empirically-based, peer-reviewed published study on a forgiveness intervention. In that article, published by the American Psychological Association’s journal, Psychotherapy, he screened 24 elderly women who suffered injustices, mostly within the family and friendship contexts. He randomized the women into the experimental group, in which he brought them through our Process Model of Forgiveness, and the control group, in which social issues were discussed, such as the influence of senior citizens on society, attitudes toward aging, and family conflicts. Each lasted for eight sessions, once a week, for about an hour each time. Findings showed that the participants in the experimental group grew statistically significantly more than the control group participants in forgiving people who have hurt them. Those in the experimental group also grew statistically significantly more than the control group in their willingness to forgive others in general. The reference to this historical work is this:

Hebl, J., & Enright, R. D. (1993). Forgiveness as a psychotherapeutic goal with elderly females. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 30(4), 658–667. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.30.4.658

Msgr. John was a dynamic, busy person as he led a Catholic parish and, at the same time, pursued successfully a doctoral degree in counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he did the groundbreaking research described above. Prior to this, he was a Brigadier General in the United States military service. I used to kid him, saying, “We all will have to address you as Father, Doctor, General Hebl!”

Rest in peace, Msgr. Hebl. Thank you for being a pioneer in forgiveness research, for serving people all these many years, and for contributing to a better world.

 

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Must one feel or experience a sentiment of guilt about their resentment to truly forgive?

Not necessarily.  Anger within a temperate range (not so long and not so deeply intense) after injustice is normal.  One may experience true guilt if one has reacted in an unjust manner toward the other person or has harbored feeling of revenge, for example.

If one is harboring this sense of revenge, as an example, or if one has lashed out verbally and with intense anger to the other person, then yes, feelings of guilt are normal and forgiving the self and, if this is a religious person, asking forgiveness from God are important.

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In your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, would you please clarify what you mean when you say that children can become “instruments of revenge against the spouse” in the section on “Anger and Family Dysfunction”? If a youngster discovers that she is being used as a tool for retaliation, what should she do? What kinds of actions might an adult child display as well if she has been exploited as a tool for retaliation?

At times, one parent will talk disparagingly about the other parent to one of the children.  That child then starts to develop a negative impression of that parent (toward whom the other parent makes consistent disparaging remarks).  The parent is trying to drive a wedge between the child and the other parent.

This child, upon growing up, might end up reproducing a pattern, learned in childhood, now with an adult partner.  For example, if the child kept criticizing Mom because of Dad’s remarks about Mom, the child, now as an adult, might be overly critical of the partner.  The adult child being aware of this and learning to forgive can break this unhealthy family pattern.

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I would like to know about situations in which you were not personally harmed but nevertheless carry resentment because you believe that someone you care about was harmed. Since we were not harmed personally, do we even have the “right” to declare our desire to forgive the person who has wronged someone we love? How should we handle our anger in this situation? And should we continue striving to forgive the one who wounded our loved one if the one who was hurt doesn’t want to forgive?

The philosopher, Trudy Govier, makes the important point that, yes, you can legitimately forgive a person who has harmed your loved one.  Dr. Govier calls this “secondary forgiveness.”  Because you were emotionally hurt by seeing your loved one treated unjustly, you then can forgive the person, even though you were not directly treated unfairly.  You were hurt and so this is your open door to forgive.

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