On Forgiveness...as a public health issue.
Forgiveness The Forgiveness project aims to study how forgiveness itself powerfully affects subsequent health and well-being, and seeks to promote forgiveness as a public health issue. Forgiveness, understood as replacing ill-will with good-will towards an offender, can powerfully change lives. Given the nearly universal experience of being wronged, it is important that a commitment to the good of the other be extended, even in difficult circumstances, if we are to move forward and bring about the good in society. This is not an ignoring or denying of the wrong, nor is it a denial of seeking a just outcome (which is in fact compatible with forgiveness). Rather it is a hope that, ultimately, the person who committed the wrong will turn to, and experience, the good. We aim to evaluate in randomized trials recently developed forgiveness workbook interventions so as to be able to promote forgiveness for individuals and communities. The workbook we studied employed Everett Worthington’s REACH model of forgiveness where each letter of REACH stands for a different part of the process: R – Recall the hurt and let the emotions associated with it surface; do not suppress them. E – Empathize with the offender, trying to understand their reasons for the action, without condoning the action or invaliding one’s feelings. A – Altruistic Gift – realize that forgiveness is an altruistic gift that can be offered or withheld, and realizing also that one has oneself sometimes done wrong and has been forgiven. C – Commit to forgive, to try to replace ill-will with good-will. H – Hold on to the forgiveness, realizing that it takes time for emotions to heal and that sometimes the anger will return. The workbook was developed by selecting the most effective exercises from prior research that could be completed in 2-3 hours, to help people who want to forgive, but were having trouble doing so. harvard.us12.list-manage.com/track/cli…