Summary
Benefitting from over 13 years of new research, this second edition of Helping Clients Forgive, now retitled Forgiveness Therapy, updates the pioneering work of Enright and Fitzgibbons. The significant development of Forgiveness Therapy and greater understanding of the role of excessive anger in mental health disorders make this book a vital tool for clinicians.
Featuring new chapters focused on the lasting legacy of those who enter forgiveness therapy and on forgiveness education for children and adolescents, this book describes the approach’s philosophical roots and includes new case studies, new empirical evaluations, and new measurement techniques.
Author Biography
Robert D. Enright, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has been a leader in the scientific study of forgiveness and its effects since 1985. Time magazine referred to him as "the forgiveness trailblazer." He is the author of more than 100 publications, including five books. In 2022, he received the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology for his innovative work in forgiveness.
Dr. Enright and his colleagues have developed and tested a pathway to forgiveness that has helped incest survivors, and people in drug rehabilitation, in hospice, in shelters for abused women, and in cardiac units of hospitals, among others. His recent work has been in schools within conflict regions, such as Belfast, Northern Ireland, assisting teachers to deliver forgiveness programs to students.
Richard P. Fitzgibbons, MD, received his medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine in 1969 and completed his training in psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center in 1976. He participated in cognitive therapy research in his training with Aaron T. Beck. Currently, he is the director of a private practice outside Philadelphia. Since 1976 he has used forgiveness therapy, and in 1986 he wrote a seminal paper on the use of forgiveness in psychotherapy.
Dr. Fitzgibbons has presented at many conferences for over 40 years to couples, mental health professionals, educators, and business and church leaders on forgiveness therapy in the resolution of excessive anger in children, adolescents, and adults in schools, families, and marriages. He has made numerous appearances on radio and television discussing the treatment of excessive anger through forgiveness therapy.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Why Learn About Forgiveness and Forgiveness Therapy?
I. Forgiveness as a Key to Healing in Psychotherapy
- Forgiveness Therapy: An Overview
- Deepening the Understanding of Forgiveness
- What Forgiveness Is Not
- The Process Model of Forgiveness Therapy
- Empirical Validation of the Process Model of Forgiveness
II. Forgiveness Therapy Within Specific Disorders and Populations
- Forgiveness Therapy in Depressive Disorders
- Forgiveness Therapy in Bipolar Disorders
- Forgiveness Therapy in Anxiety Disorders
- Forgiveness Therapy in Addictive Disorders
- Forgiveness Therapy in Childhood and Adolescent Disorders
- Forgiveness Therapy in Marital and Family Relationships
III. Education, Measurement, and Going Deeper Within Forgiveness Therapy
- Forgiveness Education
- Measures of Interpersonal Forgiveness
- Skeptical Views of Forgiveness
- Moral, Philosophical, and Religious Roots of Forgiveness
- The Client's and Therapist's Legacy
Appendix
References
Index
About the Authors
Other versions by this Author