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.