Sr. Freedman et Rd. Enright, FORGIVENESS AS AN INTERVENTION GOAL WITH INCEST SURVIVORS, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 64(5), 1996, pp. 983-992
An intervention, with forgiveness toward their abuser as the goal, was
implemented with 12 female incest survivors. The women, from a midwes
tern city, were 24 to 54 years old, and all were Caucasian. A yoked, r
andomized experimental and control group design was used. The particip
ants were randomly assigned to an experimental group (receiving the fo
rgiveness intervention immediately) or a waiting-list control group (r
eceiving the intervention when their matched experimental counterpart
finished the intervention). Each participant met individually with the
intervener once per week. The average length of the intervention for
the 12 participants was 14.3 months. A process model of forgiveness wa
s used as the focus of intervention. Dependent variables included forg
iveness, self-esteem, hope, psychological depression, and state-trait
anxiety scales. After the intervention, the experimental group gained
more than the control group in forgiveness and hope and decreased sign
ificantly more than the control group in anxiety and depression. When
the control group then began the program they showed similar change pa
tterns to the above, as well as in self-esteem improvement.