Forgiveness: A Pathway to Emotional Healing
Based on Dr. Robert Enright's 25-years of peer-reviewed, empirical scientific research, this workshop will develop participants' confidence in their own forgiveness skills so they can help their clients bring forgiveness to themselves and to their lives. Session participants will: 1) learn what forgiveness is and what it is not; and 2) discover and learn a pathway to forgiveness. In addition, participants will learn how we can all bring forgiveness to our families, schools, work places and communities for better emotional health.
As a result of this training, participants will be able to:
1. Define what the term forgiveness means - and doesn't mean.
2. Describe the various steps in the 20-Step Process Model of Forgiving.
3. Articulate how to implement the Process Model for themselves.
Forgiveness: A Pathway to Emotional Healing
I. Introduction: Forgiveness is a choice
II. What is person-to-person forgiveness? Forgiveness cuts across many different philosophies and religions
III. More on what is forgiveness and what is it not
IV. The benefits of forgiveness: scientific analyses demonstrates that considerable emotional, relational, and even physical health benefits result from forgiving
V. First forgive, then spread forgiveness: the roadmap to forgiveness; the 20-Step Process Model of Forgiving
VI. The Forgiving Community: bringing forgiveness to your clients, your family and your community
NOTE: The bulk of the session will be spent on outline Item V: Learning how to forgive (with an actual forgiveness exercise) and how to address forgiveness in one's practice.
Dr. Robert Enright is a true pioneer in the scientific study of forgiveness. He has been called "the forgiveness trailblazer" by Time Magazine because of his 25-year academic commitment to researching and implementing forgiveness programs.
Dr. Enright is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a position he has held since 1978. He is co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge about forgiveness and community renewal through forgiveness. He is also a licensed Psychologist.
Dr. Enright is the author or editor of 5 books, and over 80 publications centered on social development and the psychology of forgiveness. He developed the idea that the development of capabilities of reasoning about forgiveness paralleled the development of capabilities at reasoning about justice, which had been developed by Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Dr. Enright explored these ideas in the United States and in other countries showing evidence toward a universality of the developmental processes. He also developed an early intervention to promote forgiveness, which he calls the "process model of forgiving." This 20 step model has been tested by Dr. Enright and others largely in therapeutic situations. He has reviewed and meta-analyzed the contributions of the process model. Many others have applied his model and are practicing his forgiveness therapy approach.
Dr. Enright has received funding from the John Templeton Foundation to conduct research into medical applications of forgiving. He also received funding from a variety of foundations, agencies and individuals for establishing the International Forgiveness Institute and has conducted a range of basic and applied studies of forgiveness.
In addition to programs operating in Wisconsin and throughout the U.S., he currently has elementary school forgiveness education programs operating in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Liberia, South Africa that he oversees himself along with registered programs in 13 other countries; and has consulted for education programs in Colombia, South America and in Serbia.
For his work in the peace movement, Dr. Enright was named a 2006 Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International. He also received the 2008-2009 Dick Ringler Distinguished Peace Educator Award from the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.