Models of Forgiveness
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RT3335_half title page 4/24/06 12:58 PM Page 1 Forgiveness and Reconciliation RT3335.indb 2 4/28/06 11:32:56 AM RT3335_title page 4/24/06 12:57 PM Page 1 Forgiveness and Reconciliation Theory and Application Everett L. Worthington, Jr. New York London Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business RT3335_Discl.fm Page 1 Wednesday, November 23, 2005 1:02 PM Published in 2006 by Published in Great Britain by Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN © 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10987654321 International Standard Book Number-10: 1-58391-333-5 (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-58391-333-8 (Hardcover) Library of Congress Card Number 2005033905 No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Worthington, Everett L., 1946- Forgiveness and reconciliation : theory and application / Everett L. Worthington, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-58391-333-5 (hb : alk. paper) 1. Forgiveness. 2. Reconciliation. I. Title. BF637.F67W68 2006 155.9'2--dc22 2005033905 Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com Taylor & Francis Group and the Routledge Web site at is the Academic Division of Informa plc. http://www.routledge-ny.com To John M. (Jack) Templeton, Jr., MD—man of God, friend, leader, philanthropist, and visionary—who has done more to promote a scientific understanding of forgiveness than anyone I know. RT3335.indb 5 4/28/06 11:32:56 AM RT3335.indb 6 4/28/06 11:32:56 AM Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Part I A Stress-and-Coping Theory of Forgieness and Releant Eidence Chapter 1 Models of Forgiveness 15 Chapter 2 A Biopsychosocial Stress‑and‑Coping Theory of Forgiveness 29 Chapter 3 Evidence That Unforgiveness Is a Stress Reaction 61 Chapter 4 Emotion in the Stress‑and‑Coping Theory of Forgiveness 69 Chapter 5 Evidence Supporting the Emotional Replacement Hypothesis 83 Part II Personality Traits of Forgiers and Nonforgiers Chapter 6 Forgiveness and the Big Five Personality Traits 109 Chapter 7 Dispositions Related to Unforgiveness and Forgiveness 119 ii RT3335.indb 7 4/28/06 11:32:57 AM iii • Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application Chapter 8 Personality Can Be Changed 141 Part III Clinical Applications to Promote Forgieness and Reconciliation Chapter 9 A General Approach to Psychotherapy 155 Chapter 10 Intervening Specifically to Promote Forgiveness 169 Chapter 11 Intervening to Promote Forgiveness of Self 187 Chapter 12 Intervening to Promote Reconciliation 197 Chapter 13 Research Support for Helping People REACH Forgiveness 223 Chapter 14 Promoting Forgiveness and Reconciliation Within Society 237 Conclusion Forgiveness Is Not a Panacea 269 Appendix What Is Forgiveness? 273 References 277 Index 295 RT3335.indb 8 4/28/06 11:32:57 AM Preface You can transform your world. Help others forgive. Change one relation‑ ship at a time. Transformation can spread from your personal life, to your clinical relationships, to society. I believe this theory of forgiveness will help bring about that transformation. Within the existing research literature on forgiveness, there are many models of how people forgive. There are also many clinical models of how to help people forgive. In this book, I describe a theory relating biological, psychological, and social aspects of both forgiving and helping people for‑ give. The theory draws on general stress‑and‑coping theory (see Lazarus, 1999). Perhaps “theory” is too pretentious for what I have written. A model describes how concepts fit together. A theory weaves models into a larger biopsychosocial fabric by intertwining threads of ways to understand people. I try to weave several scientific models into a story: the biology of stress, the justice motive, coping theory, positive psychology, emotion‑ motivation models, the social psychology of predicaments and accounts, intergroup relations, and societal interactions. I relate those basic scien‑ tific models to clinical science. By drawing from psychodynamic theories, emotion‑focused therapy, integrative behavior therapy, hope‑focused rela‑ tionship enhancement, and solution‑focused therapy, I describe interven‑ tions to promote forgiving. Those interventions derive from and inform the basic‑science models. To the extent that I succeed in creating a stress‑and‑coping theory of unforgiveness and forgiveness, you should expect to see literatures woven together into a seamless fabric. You should develop an understanding of ix RT3335.indb 9 4/28/06 11:32:57 AM x • Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application the driving concepts within the theory, and you should ask questions you were not asking before. Inevitably, I will fail at producing a forgiveness “theory.” But perhaps I can move our thinking along. If you are not a psychological scientist or a clinician, you can enrich your world by entering this theoretical journey. But, this book is aimed at researchers and clinicians. If you are a psycho‑ logical scientist—perhaps even an accomplished forgiveness researcher—I hope this will take you on a stimulating new journey. I hope you will tweak your own theorizing and find new concepts to study. If you are a clinician, I hope you will see new ways to help clients who are dealing with trans‑ gressions without them feeling that forgiveness is coerced. I am convinced of the usefulness of the theory. I have used it in research. I have tested the basic ideas in counseling with groups, couples, and indi‑ viduals. I have applied it in my own life. For example, on January 2, 1996, in the wee hours of the morning, I encountered the most difficult trans‑ gression I ever had to wrestle with. I forgave the youths who had murdered my mother less than two days before. I had studied forgiveness in the lab since 1989 and done marriage, fam‑ ily, individual, and group counseling for almost 20 years. Yet I was not prepared to deal with horrific personal loss. We never are. These life tests are too big, too unexpected. My mom was alone on that New Year’s Eve night. She puttered around the house waiting for New Year’s. At age 78, though, she cared more about dropping off to sleep than about the ball dropping in Times Square. She may have thought about her physical restrictions. She often felt ill. She was prone to worry. Would lung cancer, which had claimed Dad, get her? Her legs bothered her. Her blood pressure was high. Her hearing had begun to fail. “What will this new year hold?” she might have thought as she pulled on the sheer pale‑blue nightgown. Settling in, she switched off the light. Later, a youth armed with a crowbar smashed the window in the back door. He and his buddy began to search for valuables. In the darkness, there were gentle scrapes of drawers pulled out, paper thrown to the floor, cush‑ ions tossed about. They were pirates, and there was treasure to be found. The youth with the crowbar went into the hallway, pulling the contents from an old, refinished glass‑doored bookcase. Suddenly, behind him he heard something that set his nerves on edge. A voice, quivering with fear: “What are you doing in here?!” My mother had at last awakened. She stepped into the hallway behind the youth. The youth whirled, taking a defensive pose automatically. Some primi‑ tive thought may have flooded his brain. A whining voice might have buzzed inside his head, “This is not the way it’s supposed to be! This was supposed to be a perfect crime! This old woman is destroying my perfect RT3335.indb 10 4/28/06 11:32:57 AM Preface • xi crime!” He felt the heft of the crowbar in his hand and looked down, think‑ ing, “Even worse. I’m going to go to jail! This old woman has seen my face! She’s looking directly at me. She can put the finger on me.” Without thinking, he may have taken a step forward, drawn back the crowbar. As my mother threw up her hands, he struck down over the top of her hands, hitting her in the face. She fell. He shifted his grip—two hands now. He struck her on the back. He grabbed her by the hair and rolled her over. Then in a final surge of adrenaline, he smashed her in the left temple. “Man, what have you done?!” his buddy might have shouted from the doorway. “You killed her!” “She would have sent us both to jail! I didn’t have any choice!” As the murderer wrestled with his own actions, he became angrier. He began to smash mirrors in every room. He looked down at her bleeding body. He ran to the case he had been rifling when he was interrupted. He smashed the mirror into thousands of pieces. Then he sprinted to the kitchen, bashing things with the crowbar. He snatched a wine bottle. My mother was unconscious. She was prob‑ ably breathing irregularly and weakly. Her negligee made her look as defenseless as a frumpy old granny. All the worse.