Forgiveness Therapy

This new edition offers new case studies, new empirical evaluation, modern philosophical roots of forgiveness therapy, and new measurement techniques.

This book introduces a new form of therapy - Forgiveness Therapy. Clear therapeutic methods are given to help heal resentments by forgiving. The awesome spiritual power to heal is in all of us and can be accessed by using the clinical forgiveness guidelines presented. Healing resentments can have a huge positive impact on a person's ability to establish and maintain long term sobriety. Healing resentments can improve mental health and significantly raise self-esteem. Real life stories testify of people who have forgiven terrible abuse and have finally experienced peace and joy.

Move beyond being a victim of others’ actions and discover the freedom that is yours in choosing therapeutic forgiveness. The 35 lessons contained in this book can help you to put yourself back in control, transcend the most hurtful of circumstances, and make the healing choice of wellness over bitterness.

This book shows how forgiveness-oriented Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) helps individuals and couples process and transform distressing negative emotions by accessing internal resources of strength and self compassion. Many individuals and couples come to therapy because of unresolved feelings of anger and hurt due to experiences of being wronged, betrayed, or violated. Over the past 20 years, Leslie Greenberg and his colleagues have undertaken clinical research to articulate a model of emotional injury resolution and map out a therapy-assisted path to forgiveness. This book offers step-by-step guides for conducting EFT and EFT for couples, along with analyses of extensive clinical case material. It shows readers how to: -promote clients' ownership of their emotional experience -empower clients to appropriately assign responsibility for harm done -help clients see themselves as having the personal resources and resilience to recover from the emotional injury Therapists will also learn to help clients determine whether forgiveness--with or without reconciliation with the injurer--is the right path for them, or whether therapy should focus instead on letting go of negative feelings.

Psychologist Sharon Lamb & philosopher Jeffrie Murphy argue that forgiveness has been accepted as a therapeutic strategy without serious, critical examination. They intend this volume to be a closer, critical look at some of the questions the topic raises.

At some level, most patients who are undergoing therapy have issues of revenge and forgiveness to contend with. Mary Sherrill Durham explores the concepts of vengeance, revenge fantasies, and the granting or withholding of forgiveness, as they are manifested to the therapist during treatment. She argues that revenge is usually expressed in one of two ways, and categorizes patients accordingly into two archetypes. The `Exploited - Repressive Individual' is anxious and depressed, and during therapy wishes to retaliate against a parent who has used him or her in an inappropriate and self-serving manner. The `Vindictive Character', on the other hand, has usually been more openly rejected or manipulated and may well suffer from a personality disorder. This character is more likely to act out his or her rage than repress it. Identifying a renewed interest in the topic of forgiveness, the author takes a pragmatic view of its potential for healing and closure, and examines our ambivalent relationship to it. Mary Sherrill Durham draws on her extensive clinical experience to illustrate her arguments, and relates them to society in general. She devotes separate chapters to revenge and forgiveness as they are expressed by children and adolescents, and by offenders. She also examines potential for the therapist/patient relationship to become a re-enactment of an abusive or controlling situation.

Many people come for help because they remain stuck in a destructive relationship, job, legal battle or memories of child abuse. A growing number of therapists believe that forgiveness is of crucial importance in helping people break away from these patterns of resentment and revenge. Does forgiveness help? Or is the concept out of date in our more secular society? Forgiveness and the Healing Process considers this debate. Experienced contributors: * Consider the place of forgiveness in working with individuals and couples * Explore the benefits of mediation as a way forward both for the individual and the organisation, and also within the criminal justice system * Offer a valuable insight into South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the crucial role of forgiveness in post-apartheid South Africa * Examine a client's view of seeking forgiveness * Present new frameworks for workers seeking to help people cope with trauma and injustice. Forgiveness and the Healing Process helps counsellors, psychotherapists, social workers, mediators, psychiatrists, and those working in the criminal justice system understand how forgiveness can facilitate the therapeutic process. Cynthia Ransley is a lecturer and course leader in social work at Brunel University. She is an integrative psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer in London. Terri Spy is a counselling psychologist and fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is a London-based integrative psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. Contributors: Michael Carroll, Jane Cooper, Gill Eagle, Maria Gilbert, Joy Green, Guy Masters, Fathima Moosa, Cynthia Ransley, Terri Spy, Gill Straker.

In our culture the belief that "To err is human, to forgive divine," is so prevalent that few of us question its wisdom. But do we ever completely forgive those who have betrayed us? Aren't some actions unforgivable? Can we achieve closure and healing without forgiving? Drawing on more than two decades of work as a practicing psychotherapist, more than fifty indepth interviews, and sterling research into the concept of forgiveness in our society, Dr. Jeanne Safer challenges popular opinion with her own searching answers to these and other questions. The result is a penetrating look at what is often a lonely, and perhaps unnecessary, struggle to forgive those who have hurt us the most and an illuminating examination of how to determine whether forgiveness is, indeed, the best path to take--and why, often, it is not.