Liberty Coun 506 Effect of Forgiveness

A Review: The Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Depression, Anxiety, and Posttraumatic Stress for Women after Spousal Emotional Abuse

Liberty University

COUN 506

November 26, 2011

Summary

The gift of forgiveness has long been overlooked as an empirically documented psychological tool. The data indicates that research on forgiveness has been largely overlooked as to its benefits and until the mid-80’s studies were sparse if they existed at all. Emotional abuse among spouses is a significant issue affecting some 35% of woman (Reed & Enright, 2006). Reed and Enright have created a research study to measure the concrete value of forgiveness among women who have been subject to this form of abuse (2006).

Unfortunately, despite the pervasiveness of emotional abuse, at the time of this study no validated treatments have been established (2006). Reed and Enright take the information in stride and attempt to develop a robust form of treatment. A primary concern of this study was to split the treatment of physical abuse from that of emotional abuse because the two forms of mistreatment carry with them significantly different characteristics. This study not only points out the lacking of quantitatively supported treatment programs but that some of the currently used treatments may not prove to be empirically effective at all, specifically anger validation (Reed & Enright, p.921, 2006).

This study was built around a group of 20 abused women with a minimum separation time of two years. All participants were self-electing responding to newspaper ads or flyers in treatments centers (2006). The participants were paired after an evaluation to determine those women that had the most closely related experiences. This resulted in a test group of 10 pairs. Two challenges the study attempts to overcome are the learned helplessness and accusatory suffering (2006).

It is with great dismay that I reiterate this study claims to be the first empirical studies on forgiveness...