Tagged: “Self-Forgiveness”

2020: A Record-Setting Year for Dr. Robert Enright and the International Forgiveness Institute

While “perseverance” and “grit” may  be apt descriptors for what turned out to be perhaps the most peculiar year in modern history, forgiveness researcher Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, has a different take on 2020: “Without question, it turned out to be our most productive year since I began studying forgiveness three decades ago.”

Scientific Research Studies:

To illustrate his point, the man Time magazine called “the forgiveness trailblazer,” rattled off the 11 scientifically-based manuscripts he and various team members completed and had published or accepted for publication during the year. Covering a wide range of cultural diversity, and encompassing studies in seven countries with both adult and child participants, those studies included (click title to read more):

• Compassionate love and dispositional forgiveness: Does compassionate love predict dispositional forgiveness? (Conducted in the United States) – Published in Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health.
• Measuring intergroup forgiveness: The Enright Group Forgiveness Inventory. (China, Taiwan, Slovenia,  United States) – Peace and Conflict Studies.
• Effectiveness of forgiveness education with adolescents in reducing anger and ethnic prejudice in Iran. (Iran) – Journal of Educational Psychology.
• A philosophical and psychological examination of “justice first”: Toward the need for both justice and forgiveness when conflict arises. – Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology [in press].
• An addition to peace education: Toward the process of a Just and Merciful Community in schools. (China and the United States) – Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology [in press].
• Evaluation of the effectiveness and satisfaction of the Learning to Forgive Program for the prevention of bullying. (Spain) – Electronic Journal of Educational Psychology [in press].
• Trauma and healing in the under-served populations of homelessness and corrections: Forgiveness therapy as an added component to intervention. – Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy [in press]. 
• Validating the Enright Self-Forgiveness Inventory. (United States) – Current Psychology [in press].
• A randomized controlled trial of a forgiveness intervention program with female acid attack survivors in Pakistan. (Pakistan) –Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy [in press].
•  “A Review of the Empirical Research Using Enright’s Process Model of Interpersonal Forgiveness” (International) – Handbook of forgiveness [2020].
• “Forgiveness Within Psychotherapy” (International) – The Wiley Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences: Models and Theories.

Forgiveness Presentations:

In addition to his first love (scientific research on forgiveness, as evidenced by the list above), Dr. Enright developed and delivered targeted forgiveness presentations in the U.S. and around the world during 2020. His more noteworthy audiences included:

• Staff and imprisoned people at Her Majesty’s Prison – Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Doctors and medical specialists attending an online conference on polyclonal immunoglobulins in patients with multiple myeloma – Bratislava, Slovakia. 
• Pediatricians, oncologists, and cancer treatment specialists attending the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Educational Conference – Madison, Wisconsin.
• Faculty and research associates at the Pan-European University – Bratislava, Slovakia.
• School administrators and teachers – Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• Students and faculty of Liberty University – Lynchburg, Virginia.
• Rotary Club members – Richmond, California.

Media Interviews, Podcasts, Video Productions:

As a highly-sought-after media personality, Dr. Enright’s 2020 media interviews included:

• A 67-minute podcast hosted and broadcast by Dr. Alexandra Miller, a popular family relations psychologist, on Rehabilitating those who are ‘Forgotten’: People in Prison. The podcast was downloaded by individuals in 225 US cities and 22 foreign countries in just the first three weeks after it was recorded in July.
• A multi-segment forgiveness video produced for Revolution Ventures, Bangalore, India.
• A “therapeutic music-discussion video” with song-writer/performer Sam Ness that was produced for those struggling with anguish caused by COVID-19. The therapeutic video, called “How to Beat the Coronavirus Lockdown Blues,” was distributed worldwide through venues including YouTube.
• A video interview at the International School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.
• Interview for DER SPIEGEL/Spiegel online, a German weekly news magazine that has the largest circulation of any such publication in Europe.
• Interview with author Aaron Hutchins for Maclean’s—a current affairs magazine with 2.4 million readers based in Toronto,  Canada.
• Interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung GmbH, Germany’s largest daily newspaper.
• Podcast interview with Dr. Peter Miller, Sport and the Growing Good: 8 Keys to Forgiveness.
• Live interview, The Drew Mariani Show (national), Relevant Radio.
• Interview with Dr. Max Bonilla, International Director, Expanded Reason webinar, Madrid, Spain.

BLOGS AND MORE:

The activity doesn’t stop there. During 2020, Dr. Enright:

• Authored 12 new forgiveness-related blogs for Psychology Today and 12 more for “Our Forgiveness Blog” on the International Forgiveness Institute website.
• Provided written responses on the IFI website for 208 “Ask Dr. Forgiveness” questions.
• Together with Jacqueline Song, IFI researcher and creator of the IFI’s Driver Safety Campaign, distributed more than 5,000 “Drive for Others’ Lives” bumper stickers requested by website visitors and funded by a grant from the Green Bay Packers Foundation.

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My boyfriend, who is straining our relationship, keeps borrowing money from me, not paying it back, and then he proclaims that he is forgiving himself. He then continues in the same pattern. Is this really self-forgiveness? If so, I want none of it.

Your boyfriend actually is engaging in what we call false self-forgiveness or pseudo self-forgiveness.  Genuine self-forgiveness includes remorse or sorrow for what was done, repentance toward those who are hurt, and a genuine change of behavior, as well as a welcoming the self back into the human community.  You might want to point this out to him so that he can stop the denial of the hurtful behavior and possibly be open to change

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The Value of Forgiveness

“2020 brought plenty to be angry about. There’s been a global pandemic, a national reckoning with racial injustice, an economic crisis and a presidential election – all of it debated each day on social media. But University of Northern Iowa (UNI) education professor Suzanne Freedman, who has specialized in forgiveness research over nearly three decades, says now may be a good time to remember the benefits of forgiveness, empathy and understanding.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Offsetting his dreary assessment of this unusual year with a final note of optimism, writer Steve Schmadeke used the paragraph above to set the stage for an informative article about the benefits of forgiveness that was printed last week in the online periodical INSIDE UNI. The article featured the forgiveness philosophy of Dr. Suzanne Freedman, a UNI professor of human development who is also a former graduate student and long-time research associate of Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the International Forgiveness Institute. Here are some of Dr. Freedman’s pronouncements as quoted in the UNI article:

What are the benefits of forgiveness?

I am often asked, “Why should I forgive?” and my response is always the same: “What’s the alternative?” Although forgiveness cannot undo the injury or damage, it allows us to move forward in our lives free from the negative effects of anger, hatred and resentment. It offers us a way to heal while still acknowledging that what happened to us was wrong, unfair and extremely hurtful.

Research has found that benefits of forgiveness for children, adolescents and adults include greater psychological and physical well-being, including decreases in anger, anxiety and depression. It also shows increases in hope, self-esteem, feelings of peace, improved relationships and academic achievement for students in school, as well as decreases in blood pressure, headaches and stress.

How does forgiveness deal with anger?

We have a right to feel resentment and anger. Many people criticize forgiveness because they mistakenly believe that anger is not part of the process. In fact, the opposite is true. We need to express our anger before we can forgive. Forgiveness involves admitting that one has been hurt, working through the feelings related to that hurt and then moving beyond them. The other important point is that the offender does not deserve our compassion because of their hurtful actions. However, we give it nevertheless.

Is self-forgiveness a real thing?

Self-forgiveness is a real thing. We have a model of self-forgiveness that is similar to our model of forgiving another. Self-forgiveness occurs when we have to forgive oneself for committing a deep, personal and unfair hurt. However, like in forgiving others, it occurs in the context of deep, personal and unfair hurt. 

This can be hurt you have suffered due to your own actions. People who find self-forgiveness may be less likely to engage in self-destructive behavior or even hurt others. 

Our society needs to do a better job of helping people realize that they can move on from their worst pains or actions. When individuals view themselves from the lens of only their hurtful behavior, they are not recognizing the fact that all human beings have inherent worth. Forgiving yourself will make it easier for individuals to become more forgiving of others, too.

Read the full UNI article: The Value of Forgiveness

ABOUT DR. SUZANNE FREEDMAN:
A professor of human development at the University of Northern Iowa, Dr. Freedman earned both her Masters Degree and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied under and conducted research with Dr. Robert Enright. Her dissertation was a landmark study that was published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology: Forgiveness as an Intervention Goal with Incest Survivors.

At the University of Northern Iowa, Dr. Freedman teaches a variety of development courses including Studies in Forgiveness–an online, continuing education course designed primarily for upper-class psychology, counseling, and clinical students preparing to work with clients as helping professionals.

Dr. Freedman can be reached at freedman@uni.edu

MORE FORGIVENESS COMMENTARY FROM DR. FREEDMAN:

• Kids Say the Darndest Things — About Forgiveness
• The Impact of Using Children’s Literature to Teach 5th Graders About Forgiveness
• Forgiveness: The Path to Restoring Your Emotional and Physical Health After Sexual Abuse
• The “F Word” for Sexual Abuse Survivors: Is Forgiveness Possible?
• It’s Okay to Not Be Okay: The Importance of Admitting and Expressing One’s Painful Emotions in Everyday Life and When Forgiving

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Sorry again for another follow-up question. When I read your response that self-forgiveness is more than self-acceptance and leads to self-love, I can’t help but see narcissism in this. Isn’t the person now engaging in too much of a focus on the self, which can lead to an exaggerated sense of self-importance, inducing narcissism?

Narcissism is a vice.  Genuine self-love is a virtue.  When people genuinely love themselves following misbehavior, they are not saying how great and wonderful and perfect they are.  Instead, they courageously acknowledge wrongdoing and this requires humility, not narcissism. When people conclude that they have worth on the same level as all other people, they are not exalting themselves above all others.  Instead, they are leveling the moral playing field, seeing how all people are special, unique, and irreplaceable, including the self.

For additional information, see Inherent Worth.

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Sorry for one or two more questions about self-forgiveness. I am trying to understand it. Why not just encourage people to engage in self-acceptance. Why go so far as using the words “self-forgiveness” to describe what actually is self-acceptance?

Self-acceptance and loving the self again are different.  Self-acceptance has a certain ring of tolerance or putting up with the self despite the moral infraction done by the self.  Loving the self is to go much more deeply than that.  To love the self again is to place oneself on the same level of humanity as all others, to see one’s worth as a person, to be gentle with oneself despite imperfections.  This is much more than simply tolerating the self.

For additional information, see Self-Forgiveness.

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