FORGIVENESS AS A PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC GOAL WITH ELDERLY FEMALES

A psychotherapeutic intervention with forgiveness as the goal was impl emented with 24 elderly females. The client's goal was to forgive one person who had inflicted considerable psychological hurt, as judged by the client. The subjects were randomly assigned to a forgiveness cond ition and a control group. The forgiveness group followed a treatment model based on Enright et al. (1991). Dependent variables included two forgiveness scales, a self-esteem inventory, a psychological depressi on scale, and a state-trait anxiety scale. Following the eight week in tervention, the experimental group showed significantly higher forgive ness profiles at posttest compared with the control group. Both groups significantly decreased from pretest to posttest on psychological dep ression and trait anxiety. Implications for forgiveness counseling are discussed.