Lin Article Critique

Lin Article Critique #1

Gwendolyn R. Mbuvi

Lin Article Critique #1

Summary of Article

The Lin, Mack, Enright, Krahn, and Baskin (2008) consists of a literature review that offered evidence to support the hypothesis of “We hypothesized that individuals in residential treatment for alcohol and drug dependence, after receiving treatment augmented by forgiveness therapy, would demonstrate less anger, depression, anxiety , and vulnerability to substance use and more self-esteem than those receiving residential treatment augmented with a similar amount of more standard regimen, alcohol and drug counseling (ADC), that was not focused on anger reduction.” Then there is the method, results, a case study, and discussion of the study that was conducted in a residential facility.

This study ended with fourteen individuals completing it, seven for each group. It resulted in those in the forgiveness therapy group showing “significantly greater improvements…in forgiveness, composite anxiety, trait anxiety, composite anger, depression, trait (but not state) anger, self-esteem and vulnerability to drug use. The results were maintained at the 4-month follow-up. (The Lin, Mack, Enright, Krahn, & Baskin, 2008)

Critique of Article

Critique of Title

The title is of this article very specific and concise in that it not only discusses the effects of forgiveness therapy, but it mentions the different variables and the population on which the treatment was conducted on. This title implies causality and the method of research justifies it. In chapter three Pyrczak, (2008) states that causality is implied by the use of the word “effects”. In this case the authors conducted an experiment on residents of a local treatment facility to compare the effects of Forgiveness Therapy.

The authors did not utilize jargon or acronyms that were unknown to the audience in the title. They also did not limit the title to a yes-no question, nor did they describe any results in...