IFI News

Forgiveness Becomes Her Passion: “Replace Hate with Love”

Carly Elms is a determined woman, a well-educated and experienced therapist, and a disciple of “forgiveness therapy” as developed and proven by Dr. Robert Enright, the founder of the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) and a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Forgiveness is the only way to move through the anger and pain of even the most horrible wrongs,” according to Elms, “and to not let hate consume the rest of a life.”

Carly Elms Photo 2

Carly R. Elms, M.Ed., LMSW, CRC

Elms holds two master’s degrees. Along with her Masters in Clinical Social Work (MSW), she has a Masters of Education in Educational & Counseling Psychology (M.Ed.). She is a certified rehabilitation counselor (CRC), with experience as a trauma therapist, counselor for the blind, transition counselor for youth with disabilities, a service-disabled veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and a fanatic about forgiveness therapy.

Last fall, Elms opened the Franciscan Forgiveness Center on the grounds of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist in Independence, MO, to help victims recover their lives from even the worst thing that could possibly happen to them.

“It’s a place of healing,” Elms said of the peaceful grounds where she has her office and where she also teaches the Sisters about forgiveness. “And that’s what forgiveness is. It is healing.”

Elms said she became a disciple of Dr. Enright’s forgiveness model after reading his popular self-help book Forgiveness Is a Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope.  Inspired by what she read, Elms then enrolled in the IFI’s online Continuing Education Course: Helping Clients Forgive. She completed the course with the highest score ever recorded at the IFI.

Elms’ philosophy is simple (though easier said than done): Replace hate with love.

“You have a right to be angry if someone does something wrong to you,” Elms said. “But there really can’t be anything good that comes out of that. All that anger is the desire for revenge.”


“Revenge won’t heal a broken heart. The ability to forgive and to love will.”


Read more about Carly Elms:
» Replace hate with love: forgive and heal, an article in The Catholic Key Online.
» Carly Elms, M.Ed., LMSW, CRC; Franciscan Forgiveness Center, a review on CatholicTherapists.com.

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Jerusalem Conference on Forgiveness for Peace

The Jerusalem Conference on Forgiveness for Peacescheduled for July 12-13, 2017is the first ever forgiveness conference to be held in the Middle East. It is being organized by Dr. Robert Enright, whom Time magazine called “the forgiveness trailblazer,” and an international team of religious and secular leaders.

Day 1 of this 2-day conference will include speakers from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam discussing what it means to forgive in each of those religious traditions, the importance of forgiveness, and how to better interact with others through forgiveness. Internationally-known speakers include Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, this year’s recipient of the Templeton Prize, and Dr. Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti Emeritus of Bosnia.

Day 2 will help us learn how to better understand what forgiveness education is and how to bring forgiveness to our children and adolescents in school and at home. Speakers include educators from Northern Ireland, Greece, Israel, Lebanon and the United States.

The conference is open to all who wish to obtain a deeper understanding of forgiveness across the three Abrahamic faiths and who have an interest in bringing forgiveness to the home, school, and other community organizations.

Early Bird Registration is now available at $150.00 but ends October 31, 2016. For more information or to register, click the link below.

 

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Prison Inmate Tames Anger Through Forgiveness

Editor’s Note: This unsolicited article was written by an inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institution at Portage, Wisconsin, and first appeared in the Institution’s September inmate newsletter. It is reprinted verbatim. 

September 2016 – This is my fourth incarceration and will be my last because of the life sentence I am now serving. During this time I have been in many groups, programs, counseling sessions, ad nauseum and was never able to understand why I kept hurting people.

At Columbia Correctional Institution I was assigned a psychologist who suggested I participate in a group based on the book Forgiveness Is a Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope by Dr. Robert Enright of UW-Madison’s Psychology Department. I made the best decision of my life when I accepted the challenge.

This was the only program that ever asked me, “What happened to you to make you the way you are?” Everyone in the group had stories to tell about how they had been used, abused, and/or misused by those they trusted and/or looked up to. We began the process as a group of individuals mostly afraid to tell our stories or let others in. As we plodded through the first weeks some wanted to give up, some felt their stories too bad, and some just didn’t trust enough to share.

As we progressed and our stories came out, we were exposed to people we never truly knew – in my case, people I most likely would never have associated with. We became close like a family and knew the group was a safe place to deal with the anger and resentment that had plagued some of us over fifty years.


“This is the best program I have ever been associated with. . .”


We could talk about those who wronged us and altered our lives, and we could begin to forgive them and release our anger.

This is the best program I have ever been associated with and would recommend the book or program to anyone. If it’s not available in your institution, talk to you psychologists or chaplains about calling CCI for more information. You can also contact Dr. Enright at the following address: Dr. Robert Enright, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dept. of Psychology, 1025 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI 3706.

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New Manual for School Counselors — An Introduction to Forgiveness for Adolescents

A new forgiveness intervention manual for at-risk middle school and high school students is now available from the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI)—at no cost.

Forgiveness Over Revenge: Grief, Insight and Virtue through Education (F.O.R.G.I.V.E.) is a training manual intended to serve as an introduction to the topic of forgiveness, both for school counselors and adolescents. The manual is not meant to serve as a diagnostic or therapeutic tool. Instead, it may be used to introduce the topic of forgiveness and to provide hands-on experience practicing forgiveness-related thought processes and exercises.

Counselors who opt to use the F.O.R.G.I.V.E. manual are provided with ten lessons, each approximately one hour in length. In the first five, students learn the basics of forgiveness, both what it is and what it is not. The remaining five lessons focus on applying the process of forgiveness through targeted activities in a group setting. Instructors may use their observations over the course of the ten sessions to better understand youths’ relationship to forgiveness and to make possible referrals for more directed forgiveness therapy when
appropriate.

The new manual was developed, designed and written by Dayana Kupisk, a current graduate student at the University of Wisconsin – Dayana Kupisk PhotoMadison, who spent a semester studying forgiveness under the direction of Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the IFI. She additionally has experience facilitating life skills and employment training to groups of at-risk youth, which greatly informed her approach for translating research-based information on forgiveness into creative activities that may be done with groups of youth.

This manual is intended for professional counselors with training to do group counseling with middle school and high school students,” according to Kupisk. “Since it contains therapeutic content, in which students focus on forgiving people who have hurt them, it is not for general classroom use, either by teachers or by counselors. Instead, this manual is intended for short-term group counseling with students who have been referred for treatment within the school setting.” 

Kupisk said she wants the F.O.R.G.I.V.E. manual distributed to as many potential users as possible. To accomplish that, she decided to allow the IFI to add the manual to its growing compilation of forgiveness intervention manuals and curriculum guides and to offer it at no cost. The manual can be ordered through the IFI website Store.

The International Forgiveness Institute, based in Madison, WI, is the only worldwide organization that focuses exclusively on forgiveness education for students from pre-kindergarten through high school. The Institute’s school forgiveness programs are operating in the U.S. and 30 other countries.

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Just Released: New Training Video by Dr. Enright – “Forgiveness Therapy in Practice”

Forgiveness Therapy in Practice-APA CoverForgiveness is the process of uncovering and letting go of anger at someone who has caused pain. This process can be the path to healing in many situations, as anger is frequently at the core of a client’s issues and may be the center of a number of disorders.

The forgiveness therapy model is flexible enough to be integrated into any therapeutic approach. Fostering forgiveness in therapy involves uncovering the depth of the client’s anger, obtaining commitment to forgive, and working on being able to forgive. The final phase of this therapy is the discovery of meaning in what has been suffered, finding a new purpose in life, and exploring one’s own faults and the need to be forgiven by others.

In this 100-minute video program, Dr. Enright demonstrates his approach to forgiveness therapy with a female client who feels hurt by her mother.

This video, produced by the APA, is not available for sale on this website.
Order exclusively from:

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