Author Archive: directorifi

Anger and Cancer: Is There a Relationship?

Anger is a negative emotion that can follow frustration, disappointment, and injustice. It can vary from mild and short-term to intense and long-term. It is the latter, the intense and long-term variety, that concerns us here, what we have called unhealthy anger (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015).

To begin answering the question concerning the link between anger and cancer, let us start with a quotation that may be an overstatement and then let us get more precise. Groer, Davis, Droppleman, Mozingo, and Pierce (2000) made the following general statement: “Extremely low anger scores have been noted in numerous studies of patients with cancer. Such low scores suggest suppression, repression, or restraint of anger. There is evidence to show that suppressed anger can be a precursor to the development of cancer, and also a factor in its progression after diagnosis.

Notice that their conclusion centers on a certain type of anger, that which is not overtly expressed but instead, to use a common expression, is bottled up.

Our next question, then, is to look for supporting evidence of this claim of suppressed anger relating to cancer, and we find it in. . . . .

Read the rest of this blog by Dr. Robert Enright in Psychology TodayFirst posted on Sept. 18, 2017.

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Power: Five Non-Traditional Views

Within psychology, power is seen as having influence over others, whether of the benign kind (such as an authority directing others) or the coercive kind (manipulating and controlling others). Friedrich Nietzsche (1881/1997), the 19th-century German philosopher, talked about the “will to power,” suggesting that the quest for power is a major human motivation. In their now classic analysis of power, French and Raven (1959) identified legitimate power (the benign kind above), referent power (drawing others to the self for the self’s benefit), expert power (the ability of others to listen and follow), reward power (being able to reinforce others), and coercive power (already mentioned).

We propose five power-themes rarely discussed. We do so to challenge you: Do you use any of these aspects of power?

1. Power-Over vs. Power-For

In virtually all of the social science literature, you will see hidden assumption: All power is over others and for the self, even if it is benign and reward-producing. Yet, there is another form of power in need of exploration, what we call here power-for, meaning an altruistic form of power in which the power-wielder aids those in need, suffers for others, and builds others up. 

Read the rest of this blog by Dr. Robert Enright in Psychology Today. 
Posted Oct. 30, 2017

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Does Forgiveness Victimize the Victim?

In the latest round of false criticism against the moral virtue of forgiveness, we find this: Forgiveness places an extra burden on victims because they already are burdened by injustice.  Now asking them to forgive or even assisting them in forgiveness adds a new challenge, a new burden and this is unfair.  Leave the victim alone, is the advice.

Let us examine this claim of a new unfair burden in forgiving.  Suppose that Person A deliberately hits Person B’s knee with a baseball bat, breaking the knee.  Person B has a burden: the broken knee and the resentment toward Person A.

If Person B now wishes to take seriously the responsibility for physical healing, should this person now go to the emergency room and endure the bright lights and the MRI and the surgery and the physical rehab?  Or, would this be too much of an added burden for Person B.  Perhaps it is unfair to encourage Person B to seek medical help……if we follow the logic of the forgiveness criticism.

Yet, this added burden of medical care, which can be a challenge, is hardly a burden relative to living with a broken knee that may not heal well with the resultant pain and limp that may last indefinitely.  The “burden” of healing is not nearly as troublesome as the burden of neglect of the injury.

Now let us turn back to the argument against forgiveness.  Let us even stay with the baseball bat incident.  Person B not only has a broken knee, but now also a broken heart from the shocking and unexpected incident.

 

Is it a burden to assist this person in healing the broken heart?  Should we just let the victim be?  Should we just let the victim live with the broken heart…..perhaps for the rest of the person’s life?

Do you see how this latest criticism against forgiveness is false?  Do you see how the major problem is the error in thinking by the critics and not in forgiveness itself?

When a person is morally injured, it seems to be charitable to offer healing.  Yes, healing can be challenging, but ignoring healing can be much worse.

Robert

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 October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM). I’ve read articles about help with forgiveness for the victims of domestic abuse but didn’t see any for the abuser. What about forgiveness therapy for the abusers? If all schools in the USA implement the forgiveness curriculum of IFI how would this affect domestic violence in the younger generation?

Forgiveness therapy for abusers is being implemented now in both medium and maximum security prisons.  The thought behind this work is that those who wound others often have been wounded prior to their crimes.
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This same kind of thinking underlies our Anti-Bullying Forgiveness Curriculum (available here on our website).  If those who bully are taught to forgive the people who have filled them with resentment and unhealthy anger, then we may have taken away a major motivation to hurt others.
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If the younger generation were fortified with forgiveness education from the early elementary grades through high school, I hypothesize that domestic violence would statistically-significantly decrease from its current levels. Thank you for the very interesting ideas.
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A Thought Experiment for You: A World without Forgiveness or Mercy

It is the year 2525 and somehow the word “forgiveness” has been dropped from the vocabulary of every person on the planet.  The word “mercy” was dropped long before that.  Justice first, justice last, justice foremost is the unchallenged thought of all.  If justice gets a bit out of hand, that is just collateral damage to be corrected some time in the future so we can all move on with our business now.

If someone steals because he was hungry, then he knew the rules. Punish him.

If an adolescent is too depressed to study, then she knew the rules and so fail her.  Trying to understand her or to sympathize with her is to let her off too easily.  What if we let off others, too, who are anxious or abused or troubled?  There would be chaos.

Rules are rules and as we know rules prevent chaos and lead to an orderly society.  We want a clean, sanitized community and taking time to heal people’s emotional wounds can be so messy.  And besides, there is no rule in our rule book that says we are obligated to clean up the messiness of sadness or loneliness or alienation.  One person’s loneliness is another person’s blissful, refreshing solitude.

If you are kind to those who are not kind to you, then you are weak and are letting that person walk all over you.  Be strong.  Walk away.  You will never regret it.

Pass by that child on the street who just ran away from a father who abused her.  She might cry and disrupt those who are on their way to important meetings to make the world better.  She will get over it.

The crying infant can wait.  We have to teach it—it—to delay gratification.

You don’t agree with me?  I have a committee that does agree and you will    be hearing from    them in due course.    It will be better for you if you adjust to the right way of thinking so we just can all get along.

So, how are you liking the world without forgiveness and mercy so far?  What will you do to plant a bit more of forgiveness and mercy into the world…….today?

Robert

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