Tagged: “Couples”

New Study Shows Forgiveness Intervention can Improve Mental Health of Grieving Parents

In the first ever true experimental study of its kind, researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of an educational forgiveness intervention on improving the mental health of parents grieving the loss of a child. The research was conceptualized and done by Lucia Záhorcová, a psychologist at  Trnava University in Slovakia. The forgiveness intervention was developed by Dr. Robert Enright, co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, who also directed the study in the country that was once part of Czechoslovakia.

The pilot study results showed that participants in the experimental group (who received the forgiveness intervention), compared to those in the control group, achieved:

• Statistically greater improvement in forgiveness towards others and in self-forgiveness in both the post-test and the follow-up test conducted four months after the end of the intervention;
• A greater decrease in depression in both the post-test and follow-up test;
• A greater decrease in anxiety and anger in the post-test; and,
• Higher improvement in the post-traumatic growth in the follow-up test.

“The death of a child is a one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences a parent can endure,” according to Dr. Enright. “That’s why we wanted to determine if forgiveness could be a positive influence in reducing a parent’s depression, anxiety and anger just as it has been demonstrated in our studies with other clinical populations like incest survivors, emotionally-abused women, and post-abortion men.”

Dr. Enright said the study in Slovakia was the first ever forgiveness intervention with grieving parents in which a control group was used. It included 21 parents randomly assigned to the experimental group (in which the educational forgiveness intervention occurred) and 21 to the control group (in which a psycho-education grief intervention with a humanistic approach took place). All the parents were grieving the loss of a child older than three years of age.

“The study demonstrated that the forgiveness intervention definitely resulted in mental health improvements for parents grieving the loss of a child,” Dr. Enright stated. “The ability to forgive another person, perhaps even the murderer of their child, can positively influence the mental health of a bereaved parent.”

The Effectiveness of a Forgiveness Intervention on Mental Health in Bereaved Parents – a Pilot Study, was published on June 21, 2021, in OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying. In addition to Dr. Enright (Dept. of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison) the study researchers included Lucia Záhorcová and Peter Halama, both in the Dept. of Psychology at Trnava University in Trnava, Slovakia. The three also teamed up for a 2019 study of 84 grieving parents called Forgiveness as a Factor of Adjustment in Bereaved Parents.

How can one reconcile with a NPD spouse, who has been emotionally and physically abusive and forced to leave?

DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIM CHOOSES COURAGE, FORGIVES HER HUSBAND, AND TURNS HER LIFE AROUND

Ruchi Singh is a young woman who refused to be just another statistic of domestic violence. To turn her life around after fearfully incurring years of abuse at the hands of her alcoholic husband, Singh decided to choose courage—and forgiveness.

“Life is made up of millions of moments but there comes a moment that decides the rest of our life,” Singh says. “For me, it was the night my husband (now ex-) put a knife to my throat, threatening to kill me. I am lucky he changed his mind.”

Although Singh wishes she did not have to know how it feels to be terrified in her own home, she acknowledges that it happened and that she had to choose what was going to drive her life—fear or courage.

“I chose courage,” Singh now tells anyone who will listen. “I chose courage, gave myself a voice, and took ownership of my life. The moment I took responsibility for my life, I moved from a place of weakness to a position of strength.”

After the knife incident, Singh was able to get away from her husband in Sydney, Australia, and return to her home in India where she told her parents for the first time about the abuse she endured. With her new-found courage, she told her husband she was not coming back to him and instead filed for divorce.

“Forgiving my husband was something I needed to do to avoid becoming a negative person,” Singh now relates. “I didn’t want to be cruel and hurtful like him. One way of staying internally clean has been by never calling him abusive names. I have even blessed him. It’s not easy, but it’s helped me free myself.”

Singh clarifies her statement by adding that forgiveness does not mean saying she is okay with her husband’s treatment of her, but that she can now continue with her life in a more peaceful frame of mind.

“The reason I forgave him was because holding onto hate would have been very harmful for my mental wellbeing,” according to Singh.  “I started my new life by creating awareness on domestic violence together with the message on courage, confidence and the power of communication. Little did I know that it was the beginning of an amazing journey.”

For Singh, forgiving didn’t come easily. It took her three months of intense meditation and hard work to forgive, in large part because her ex had never apologized and he still said everything was her fault.

“I couldn’t just think myself into forgiving, I had to take action,” Singh says. “I had to clean out the muddy water by feeling my way through all the ugly emotions until finally these negative feelings began to dissipate. Also, the chronic hip pain I’d had for four years, which no specialist could figure out, disappeared after I moved away from the relationship.” 

Today Singh is an international keynote speaker, best-selling author, talk show host, and humanitarian who runs her own personal leadership and communications company. Courageous leadership is at the heart of everything she does. She brings that to her website talk show “RuchiSinghTalks” where she provides a safe platform to have uncomfortable but important discussions.

“I share my story to create awareness about this epidemic (domestic violence) which impacts millions all over the world,” Singh says. As she outlines in her video The Power of Forgiveness: Mindset Motivation, she believes everyone has within them “the power to transform and recreate your life.”

Last year, Singh was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the 2020 Peace Summit of Emerging Leaders held at the United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok. The Summit is designed to inspire and empower young people who are passionate about positive social change. The 450+ attendees from 55 countries gave her a standing ovation.

Singh is featured in a documentary film “Till Death Do Us Part” that was the official selection of the 2020 New York Lift-Off Film Festival. That same year, she received one of her country’s highest awards, the Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award (named after the 2nd President of India).

Learn more about Singh’s amazing transformation and decision to forgive on The Forgiveness Project website.

Watch Singh’s video “The Power of Forgiveness” and all her videos on YouTube.

Visit Ruchi Singh’s website.

How can one go about convincing someone that reconciliation is not a sacrifice but instead is a benefit?

When hurt deeply by others, a person can be afraid to reconcile because of a betrayal of trust. Trust takes time to re-establish. Starting the reconciliation process requires the moral virtue of courage. So, at first the one who is afraid may very well see the process of reconciliation as a sacrifice. Yet, with time, there can be surprising and delightful benefits of trying the reconciliation process primarily because love can be re-established between two people. Thus, the key is to ask the person to see beyond the first few weeks or the first few months of the reconciliation process to see the potential fruit of the reunion.

Is it justified to forgive the self first before forgiving others?

I am supposing that you have both broken your own standard (needing self-forgiveness) and you have been treated unjustly by others (needing to forgive them). In my experience, it is easier for most people to forgive others because we tend to be harder on ourselves. If this is true in your case, then you might want to start by forgiving others and once this is accomplished, and you know the forgiving path well, you then can apply that learning to forgive yourself.