Helping adolescents forgive : the use of forgiveness education at an inpatient mental health facility

Understanding the concept of forgiveness has demonstrated to be a complex process (Walker \u26 Gorsuch, 2004; McCullough \u26 vanOyen Witvliet, 2002). Enright and the Human Development Study Group (1991) developed a process model of forgiveness as a way for people to constructively deal with their anger and improve overall psychological well-being after experiencing a deep hurt. Due to the reported benefits illustrated by forgiveness intervention studies, future research is needed to examine the effectiveness of forgiveness education with adolescents in a clinical setting. The current study implemented a forgiveness education intervention with adolescents at local inpatient mental health facility examining the difference between scores at pretest and post-test. Dependent variables included a forgiveness measure, anger measure, hope scale, depression scale, and a self-esteem measure. The intervention was implemented using a group format following the Journey to Forgiveness Curriculum (Knutson \u26 Enright, 2006) in which eight participants met with the researcher on a weekly basis for a period of 15 weeks. Following the intervention period, participants demonstrated statistically significant greater scores on the cognitive and behavioral subscales as well as their overall forgiveness score. In conjunction with all other measures, the affective subscale on the forgiveness measure did not produce statistically significant results. Strengths and limitations of the current study are discussed. Implications for future research are also identified