Handbook of the Psychology of Self-Forgiveness

Abstract

The present volume is a ground-breaking and agenda-setting investigation of the psychology of self-forgiveness. It brings together the work of expert clinicians and researchers working within the field, to address questions such as: Why is self-forgiveness so difficult? What contexts and psychological experiences give rise to the need for self-forgiveness? What approaches can therapists use to help people process difficult experiences that elicit guilt, shame and self-condemnation? How can people work through their own failures and transgressions? Assembling current theories and findings, this unique resource reviews and advances our understanding of self-forgiveness, and its potentially critical function in interpersonal relationships and individual emotional and physical health. The editors begin by exploring the nature of self-forgiveness. They consider its processes, causes, and effects, how it may be measured, and its potential benefits to theory and psychotherapy. Expert clinicians and researchers then examine self-forgiveness in its many facets; as a response to guilt and shame, a step toward processing transgressions, a means of reducing anxiety, and an essential component of, or, under some circumstances a barrier to, psychotherapeutic intervention. Contributors also address self-forgiveness as applied to diverse psychosocial contexts such as addiction and recovery, couples and families, healthy aging, the workplace, and the military. Among the topics in the Handbook: An evolutionary approach to shame-based self-criticism, self-forgiveness and compassion. Working through psychological needs following transgressions to arrive at self-forgiveness. Self-forgiveness and health: a stress-and-coping model. Self-forgiveness and personal and relational well-being. Self-directed intervention to promote self-forgiveness. Understanding the role of forgiving the self in the act of hurting oneself. The Handbook of the Psychology of Self-Forgiveness serves many healing professionals. It covers a wide range of problems for which individuals often seek help from counselors, clergy, social workers, psychologists and physicians. Research psychologists, philosophers, and sociologists studying self-forgiveness will also find it an essential handbook that draws together the advances made over the past several decades, and identifies important directions for the road ahead. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017. All rights reserved.

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Orientation to the Psychology of Self-forgiveness
Lydia Woodyatt
Flinders University
Everett L. Worthington, Jr.
Virginia Commonwealth University
Michael Wenzel
Flinders University
Brandon J. Griffin
Virginia Commonwealth University
For: Lydia Woodyatt, Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Michael Wenzel, & Brandon J. Griffin (Eds.),
Handbook of the psychology of self-forgiveness. New York, NY: Springer.
Abstract
In this introductory chapter, we provide an overview of the history and context of self-
forgiveness research within the field of Psychology. We discuss definitions of self-forgiveness,
with emphasis on theoretical and empirical quandaries that have characterized the field. We
examine contexts in which self-forgiveness has been examined as a natural process, and how the
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process depends on factors including age, gender, and religious/cultural identity. We summarize
the promise of emerging interventions designed to promote self-forgiveness. Overall, this chapter
will deepen and broaden the scope of your understanding prior to engaging with the innovative,
challenging, and rigorous scholars whose contributions to this handbook follow in the remaining
chapters.
Key Words: Self-forgiveness; Measurement; Pseudo self-forgiveness; Responsibility;
Reconciliation; Repair; Moral Transgressions; Failure; Self-compassion
Orientation to the Psychology of Self-forgiveness
This chapter is a guide to understanding what self-forgiveness is and the broad state of
psychological research that relates to self-forgiveness. While the body of literature investigating
self-forgiveness is still in its early development, this chapter will touch on the key theories,
movements, empirical work, and unexplored questions. You will see that the research is not
without its controversies. There remain many rich areas for innovation and discovery. Consistent
with the format of this book we first consider early observations of self-forgiveness, and contexts
within which self-forgiveness has been examined. We discuss early definitions of self-
forgiveness, and we describe how these have shifted over time. We then discuss how self-
forgiveness has been operationalized and measured. Finally, we review processes of self-
forgiveness and clinical approaches that are emerging in the field. If you are unfamiliar with self-
forgiveness research, this chapter will familiarize you with some key ideas you will encounter
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throughout the literature on the psychology of self-forgiveness. If you are an expert in the field,
we hope this broad chapter will stimulate your thinking about the overarching issues and exciting
future directions.
Origins of the Empirical Science of Forgiveness
Self-forgiveness was a lay term in common usage long before the recent explosion of
scientific research. A quick internet search offers more on the topic than one could possibly read
(approximately 5,020,000 hits in 0.35 seconds). Despite this wide lay interest, the science of the
psychology of self-forgiveness is relatively new. Its emergence can be traced to the early to mid-
1990s. In the earliest years, however, the systematic exploration self-forgiveness primarily
occupied the thoughts of philosophers (Dillon, 2001; Holmgren, 1998; Mills, 1995; Snow, 1993),
with only a single phenomenological study (Bauer et al., 1992) and an early measurement of trait
self-forgiveness (Mauger et al., 1992) by psychologists.
The prelude to the empirical investigation of self-forgiveness was a conceptual article
written by Enright and the Human Development Study Group (1996). This article described the
forgiveness triad, which the authors saw as three interrelated aspects of dealing with moral
transgressions. Importantly, the emphasis was on intervening to help people forgive others,
receive forgiveness from others, and forgive oneself. As an intervention process, it is
prescriptive, not descriptive. That is, the process guided psychotherapy patients through a series
of steps to arrive at a therapeutic endpoint. However, the process that one experiences in
psychotherapy, counselling, or psychoeducation often substantially differs from the natural
progression of a phenomenon. That basic psychological science of self-forgiveness remained
relatively unexplored for several years. Although Enright and colleagues never empirically
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studied the proposed theory of intervention, their article provided a foundation for the
approaching explosion of scientific interest in forgiveness.
In 1997, the John Templeton Foundation funded a Request for Proposals (RFP) on
forgiveness that propelled its empirical study. An incredible amount of knowledge was gained
that described, predicted, and experimentally manipulated forgiveness of others specifically.
None of the funded projects dealt with self-forgiveness. What that RFP accomplished was to
engage numerous scientists in research on various aspects of forgiveness. But, by 2005, it was
clear that, as Hall and Fincham (2005) noted, self-forgiveness had become the neglected step-
child of forgiveness research, receiving little scientific attention. For instance, only 34 entries in
PsycINFO from 1971 to 2005 (retrieved April 12, 2017) examined self-forgiveness relative to
almost 1,100 studies that existed on forgiving others at the time (for a bibliography, see Scherer,
Cooke, & Worthington, 2005). Research on self-forgiveness began to accumulate in the second
decade of the twenty-first century. From 1971 to 2011, only 93 articles, dissertations, or chapters
had been published (~2 per year), but from 2011 to April 2017, 124 (~about 20 per year) studies
of self-forgiveness were published.
Scope of Psychological Research on Self-forgiveness Today
To date self-forgiveness has been examined across a range of contexts. It has been related
to drug and alcohol addiction or use (Gueta, 2013; McGaffin, Lyons, & Deane, 2013), mothering
(Gueta, 2013), smoking (Wohl & Thompson, 2011), gambling (Squires, Sztainert, Gillen,
Caouette, & Wohl, 2012), and disordered eating (Peterson et al., 2017). It has been studied in
population groups including cancer patients (Toussaint, Barry, Bornfriend, & Markman, 2014),
people living with HIV/AIDS (Mudgal & Tiwari, 2015), military service members (Bryan,
Theriault, & Bryan, 2015), hypersexual disorder patients (Hook et al., 2015), and complex
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trauma survivors (Worthington & Langberg, 2013). The ways self-forgiveness has been
examined, and the impact of self-forgiveness in these contexts has varied from study to study.
Self-forgiveness has been observed with a range of demographic factors. In terms of age,
self-forgiveness research has been largely focused within adult samples, particularly young
adults (as the research has been largely, but not exclusively, with undergraduate samples).
However, self-forgiveness may be of particular relevance for older adults (see Windsor, this
volume), because at later ages adults reflect back on their regrets, failures, and missed
opportunities in life (Ingersoll-Dayton & Krause, 2005). We know little about when young
children develop a sense of self-forgiveness, nor do we know the processes they use to work
through their own feelings of having done wrong.
In terms of sex or gender differences, there have been no systematic investigations so far.
Suggestive evidence exists that women and men equally engage in self-forgiveness (Macaskill,
Maltby, & Day, 2002). However, there may be differences in how self-forgiveness functions as a
protective factor for women in contrast to men (Ermer & Proulx, 2016). Similarly, there has been
no systematic exploration of self-forgiveness and sexual identification. Some research has
examined the experiences of LGBTQ persons (Greene & Britton, 2013) and within romantic
couples (Pelucchi, Paleari, Regalia, & Fincham, 2013).
In terms of religious differences, Davis, Worthington, Hook, and Hill (2013) conducted a
meta-analysis of research on religion and spirituality as it was associated with forgiveness. In
contrast to forgiving others people, which is advocated in all five major religions, self-
forgiveness was related to neither religion nor spirituality. A positive association was observed
between self-forgiveness and religiousness when religiousness was observed as a relational
construct. In terms of cross-cultural occurrence and variations in the experience of self-
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forgiveness, we know very little. The phenomenon has been examined predominantly in North
American contexts (USA and Canada) but not uniquely so. Since 2012, studies have emerged
across a wider range of countries (e.g., Australia, Israel, India, and Italy). No study has yet
examined self-forgiveness from a cross-cultural perspective, specifically. For example, we do not
know what types of issues may lead to the need for self-forgiveness in different cultural contexts.
However, given the differences that emerge in terms of causes of shame and guilt, we could
predict differences would emerge (Goetz & Keltner, 2007). In addition, with self-forgiveness
being specifically an experience of the self, there have been no investigations of self-forgiveness
as it manifests (or doesn’t) in collectivistic cultures. What types of barriers may exist to self-
forgiveness in various cultural contexts? For example, certain belief systems may lead to
assumptions that self-forgiveness is unacceptable. Likewise, some highly religious people might
believe that forgiveness by God should be sufficient to assuage people’s shame and guilt, and
thus might invalidate the experience of self-forgiveness.
What Is Self-Forgiveness and How Can We Measure It? The Initial and Ongoing Challenge
The earliest psychological definition of self-forgiveness was proposed by Enright and the
Human Development Study Group (1996). They described self-forgiveness as “a willingness to
abandon self-resentment in the face of one’s acknowledged objective wrong, while fostering
compassion, generosity, and love toward oneself” (Enright et al., 1996, p. 116). This definition
was seminal. It is mirrored across much of the psychological literature, with nuances that
researchers have integrated from time to time in an attempt to concretely operationalize self-
forgiveness (Hall & Fincham, 2005; Wohl, DeShea, & Wahkinney, 2008). However, it is also a
source of dispute, in reply to which many scholars have proposed alternative definitions
(Woodyatt & Wenzel, 2013). There are several components of Enright et al.’s pioneering
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definition of self-forgiveness that are worth noting and which provide us with a useful frame for
examining the psychological and empirical literature that has emerged since that time.
Self-forgiveness entails releasing negative emotions directed at oneself. A key
component of self-forgiveness involves the meaningful interpretation and successful resolution
of negative emotions or attitudes directed at oneself. Enright et al. drew from philosophy of
forgiving others, paralleling the processes by beginning with resentment experienced by victims
toward perpetrators of offense (for a philosophical exploration see Holmgren, 2012). Resentment
implies holding one culpable for what has occurred and desiring to exact revenge or punishment.
When perpetrators accept forgiveness from one who was wronged, the perpetrator is released
from others’ resentment on behalf of a victim’s altruistic decision to forgive. Self-forgiveness,
according to Enright et al., is releasing the resentment one feels toward oneself for one’s own
actions.
Interestingly, in psychological research the idea of self-resentment, that is holding oneself
culpable for what occurred, experiencing the emotion of resentment, and seeking to punish
oneself, has not been clearly operationalised. Instead, researchers have identified either a
reduction in other negative emotions (i.e., shame, guilt, self-anger; e.g., Mauger et al., 1992; “I
feel guilty because I don’t do what I should do for my loved ones”) or a reduction in negative
cognition (i.e., self-blame appraisals; e.g., Wohl, Pychyl, & Bennett, 2010; “I criticize myself
for…..”). Adapting McCullough, Worthington, and Rachel’s (1997) conceptualization of
forgiving others, Hall and Fincham (2005) emphasized behaviour or behavioural motivations.
They defined self-forgiveness as “a set of motivational changes whereby one becomes
decreasingly motivated to avoid stimuli associated with the offense, decreasingly motivated to
retaliate against the self (e.g., punish the self, engage in self-destructive behaviours etc.), and
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increasingly motivated to act benevolently towards the self” (p.622). Here we can see several
motivational components, a reduction in avoidance and desire for self-punishing behaviours,
absent from Enright’s earlier definition. However, while many studies examine the roles of
shame, guilt, and self-blame in self-forgiveness (Fisher & Exline, 2010), self-directed behaviours
(e.g., self-punishment or self-deprivation) have rarely been assessed.
Given this context, it is not surprising that self-forgiveness has been defined, and then
operationalized, predominantly as the reduction or elimination of self-condemning emotions
such as shame and guilt. However, the critical element of self-forgiveness is not that the
individual has low levels of offense-related emotions. This would also be true of a perpetrator
who excused themselves of wrongdoing (Woodyatt & Wenzel, 2014). Rather, self-forgiveness is
the experience of self-condemnation and then release from these negative emotions and
cognition perhaps accompanied by an intention to repair any spiritual, social, and psychological
harm done. In this regard an underlying implicit assumption of self-forgiveness—but one rarely
operationally realized—has been that, while offense-related negative emotions can become toxic
over time, they initially empower the process of self-forgiveness by motivating reparation of
ruptures to one’s interpersonal relationships and catalysing personal growth following
perpetration of an offense. However, paradoxically, these emotions should be negatively related
to the end-state of self-forgiveness because successful self-forgiveness results necessarily in the
reduction of condemning self-directed emotions over time.
This paradox is arguably at the heart of self-forgiveness, namely that we need to
experience and accept our shame and guilt as legitimate in order to experience the later release
from them. Indeed, since a core of the definition of self-forgiveness relates to these emotions,
understanding them, how and why they arise, and how they can be worked through is essential to
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the process of self-forgiveness. There is of course a large body of accumulated research on the
self-conscious emotions (see Tracy, Robins, & Tangney, 2007), and emerging research in relation
to shame and guilt, as well as self-criticism, may offer new insights in the processes of self-
forgiveness (Gilbert, this volume; Leach, this volume).
Self-forgiveness entails fostering positive emotions directed toward oneself. Enright et
al.’s (1996) definition of self-forgiveness not only included the abandoning of self-directed
negative emotion but also the increase in positive or benevolent emotion (compassion,
generosity, and love toward the self). Davis et al. (2015), in their meta-analysis of the self-
forgiveness and well-being literature, define self-forgiveness as “an emotion-focused coping
strategy that involves reducing negative and increasing positive thoughts, emotions, motivations
and behaviours regarding oneself” (p.329-330). Even more broadly self-forgiveness has been
described as “the act of generosity and kindness toward the self following self-perceived
inappropriate action” (Bryan et al., 2015, p. 40). However, while some scales capture both the
absence of negative affect and cognition as well as the presence of positive affect and cognition,
the exact process of transformation from one to the other is still elusive. What is this
transformative process? Do negative affect and cognition simply cease and become replaced by
positive affect and cognitions? Or is a state of self-forgiveness a more emotionally complex
experience (Lindquist & Barrett, 2008)? Indeed if this was all there is to it, simply ceasing
feeling bad and moving towards feeling good, we would have a hedonic conception of self-
forgiveness, selfish and amoral as it were (for discussion of hedonic versus eudaimonic
experiences of self-forgiveness see Woodyatt, Wenzel, & Ferber, 2017).
Self-forgiveness involves an appraisal of responsibility. The final component of Enright
et al.’s (1996) definition is perhaps the most pivotal: self-forgiveness occurs “in the face of one’s
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acknowledged objective wrong” (p.116). On one hand, one may question the inclusion of the
word objective wrong. It is easy to think of examples where self-forgiveness may be needed but
where objectively no moral wrong has occurred. There are situations where we make mistakes,
fail to have foresight, or act rightly but with bad consequences – and yet may feel the need to
forgive ourselves. For many, self-condemnation occurs not because one has perpetrated moral
wrongdoing but because one failed to reach some personal standard (Worthington, 2013). For
example, one might feel self-condemnation because one failed to make straight A’s, live up to a
parent’s ideal, outsell one’s competitor, or perform as well as one wished in a golf tournament.
No objective moral wrong was committed, yet people might experience self-condemnation,
regret, remorse, guilt, and shame, with all of the attendant emotional, cognitive, and motivational
fallout. Nonetheless, social psychologists would tend to argue that these standards, including
morality, relate to one’s perceived values of reference groups and social identities, which can
vary with context and time (see Leach, Bilali, & Pagliaro, 2015).
That aside, there is general agreement that self-forgiveness does not mean denying
responsibility, but in fact results from a felt responsibility and likely involves working through
ones appraisals of responsibility. If self-forgiveness was simply releasing oneself from blame
and increasing positive emotion, this would not be true forgiveness at all, but what has been
termed pseudo self-forgiveness. Pseudo self-forgiveness is excusing oneself of blame without
recognizing that an offense has occurred, in essence letting oneself off the hook (Hall &
Fincham, 2005; Tangney, Boone, & Dearing, 2005). This means that genuine self-forgiveness
cannot be achieved by merely reappraising the wrongful or disappointing behaviour (1) as not
being so wrong, (2) as being excusable, (3) as not solely one’s own fault, or (4) as being
harmless in its effects. Without a sense of wrongdoing or at least a feeling of responsibility there
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is nothing to forgive (Hall & Fincham, 2005; Wenzel, Woodyatt, & Hedrick, 2012; Woodyatt &
Wenzel, 2013a).
Feelings of guilt, remorse, regret and condemnation that are to some extent deserved or
warranted, set the occasion for forgiveness (Dillon, 2001). This perception of perceived
responsibility for harm to oneself, others, or even towards a perceived higher moral principle or
spiritual power, also differentiates self-forgiveness from cases where humans are just managing
other self-directed negative emotion (e.g. low self-worth). Self-forgiveness may involve coming
to a more realistic understanding of one’s appraisal of responsibility. For example, it may involve
addressing self-critical perfectionism or other unrealistic expectations. Self-forgiveness is
nevertheless distinguishable from a simple release of self-condemning emotion by merely
adopting a more benevolent, generous, or understanding stance toward oneself (i.e., self-
acceptance).
The Paradox Expanded: What Makes Self-forgiveness So Difficult?
We have so far concluded that self-forgiveness is a process that occurs over time in which
an individual appraises himself or herself as responsible for a perceived wrongdoing or failure,
meaningfully interprets and successfully resolves the consequent negative self-condemning
emotions, cognitions, motivations, and behaviors, toward more positive self-directed emotions,
cognitions, motivations, and behaviors. The challenge of self-forgiveness, in both research and
clinical practice, seems to be that self-forgiveness occurs at the intersection of both of these
concerns, for arriving at and maintaining appropriate responsibility for one’s actions on one
hand, and for maintaining a positive and coherent sense of self on the other hand. This quandary
has likely hindered the development and an empirical science of self-forgiveness for some time.
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Research has come to focus on either (1) a dispositional tendency to release self-
condemnation (e.g., Maltby, Macaskill, & Day, 2001; Thompson et al., 2005), or (2) an end-state
of self-forgiveness where individuals have disposed of their self-condemnation, and instead show
high compassion, love, and generosity toward the self (Wohl et al., 2008). Hall and Fincham
(2005) identified this problem, noting that, at a measurement level, the outcome of self-
forgiveness would be indistinguishable from pseudo self-forgiveness, where offenders let
themselves off the hook by denying responsibility, minimizing harm or blaming the victim (see
also Tangney et al., 2005; Wenzel et al., 2012). Despite Hall and Fincham’s (2005) warnings on
the problems associated with measuring self-forgiveness as a hedonic disposition or end-state,
research on self-forgiveness has largely evolved using this approach, possibly introducing the
influence of a confound into the extant literature on self-forgiveness.
We contend that in forgiveness (of self or others) negative feelings are released
(Worthington, 2006) without explaining away or excusing harmful behaviour (Thompson et al.,
2005). For this reason, Wenzel, Woodyatt, and Hedrick (2012) argued that self-forgiveness is
best understood as the process by which we sever the negative link between taking responsibility
and positive self-regard, which is a process that Holmgren (1998) referred to as genuine self-
forgiveness. Woodyatt and Wenzel (2013b) demonstrated that measures of self-forgiveness had
been largely oriented toward capturing repair of positive self-regard and, instead, developed a
measure of genuine self-forgiveness as a process, emphasizing acceptance of responsibility, and
thus differentiating state self-forgiveness from pseudo self-forgiveness. Cornish and Woodyatt
(2017) developed a dispositional measure of genuine self-forgiveness, in an attempt to
disentangle dispositional self-forgiveness from personality traits associated with hedonic well-
being, that is, simply the maintenance of positive self-regard.
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More recently, Griffin (2017) suggested a measure that attempts to capture directly the
distinct nature of accepting responsibility and enhancing esteem as a dual-process model in an
effort to improve state self-forgiveness measures. According to the dual-process model (Griffin
et al., 2015), two distinct processes make up self-forgiveness. First, affirmation of values
requires a cognitive shift toward accepting responsibility for one’s offense and committing to
align one’s behaviour and values in the future. Second, restoration of esteem entails the
replacement of self-condemning emotions with self-affirming emotions. While these distinct but
related components are each necessary and jointly sufficient for self-forgiveness to occur, they
likely relate uniquely to various antecedents and consequences. For example, making a decision
to affirm violated values by accepting responsibility and attempting to learn from one’s mistakes
is more proximally associated with interpersonal benefits (e.g., social belonging), while
enhancing esteem is more proximally associated with intrapersonal benefits (e.g., personal
health; Griffin et al., 2016). Within this dual-process framework, preliminary evidence suggests
that the existing scales that purport to assess self-forgiveness err either toward responsibility
acceptance (Woodyatt & Wenzel, 2013) or enhancing esteem (Wohl et al., 2008), potentially to
the exclusion of the other (Griffin, 2017). These dual processes may mirror decisional and
emotional components of forgiveness toward others (Exline, Worthington, Hill, & McCullough,
2003; Worthington, 2006, 2013).
These recent developments can be seen as a movement towards a eudaimonic
conceptualisation of self-forgiveness. Self-forgiveness is conceptualised as more than a hedonic
outcome, that is more than just relieving the self from feeling bad and helping the self to feel
good. It is a process of personal development, growth, and change (Woodyatt et al., 2017) and is
embedded within relationships in which responsibility is acted out, values are reaffirmed, and
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social harmony is of concern. For self-forgiveness to be genuine, individuals need to maintain
their awareness of responsibility and having done wrong while relieving self-condemnation.
They may accept their self despite their guilt and shame, severing (global) self-evaluation from
their (specific) moral failure, or indeed regain their self-worth through accepting guilt and shame
as indicators of their intact moral identity.
In this sense, self-forgiveness would require psychological work, but there are still many
questions as to what kind of work exactly is part of the process. Is it simply the process of
working through one’s harmful actions to arrive at a state of reduced self-condemnation, or are
there certain attitudes and actions that are required for self-forgiveness to have occurred? To
what extent should amend making or behavior change be required as part of the process? Are
these behaviors part of the process of self-forgiveness, or in addition to it? Is self-forgiveness
simply an “emotional coping” response where one shifts from a negative to positive self-directed
state (as defined by Davis et al., 2015), or is more involved? This is a point of tension within the
research: Where does the definition of self-forgiveness end, and prescriptions of how self-
forgiveness ‘should’ work begin? This has implications for our understanding of the outcomes
and the ethicality of self-forgiveness.
Natural and Clinical Models of Self-forgiveness
What processes are involved in working through one’s wrongdoing or self-condemnation?
We must come at this question by two routes. First, models of naturally occurring self-
forgiveness might reveal ways that people work through self-condemnation to reach self-
forgiveness without specific intervention. Second, clinical models suggest ways that clinicians
have shown that people can be induced to forgive themselves when they seek help.
Models of Naturally Occurring Self-Forgiveness
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While no clear dominant evidence-based model of naturally occurring self-forgiveness
has yet emerged (McConnell, 2015), several models have been proposed. Hall and Fincham
(2005) posited a psychological model of self-forgiveness. In their model, self-forgiveness was an
outcome of attributions of responsibility, perception of severity, guilt, shame and empathy,
conciliatory behaviors, and perception of forgiveness by others. This model was subsequently
tested using a longitudinal design, reported in Hall and Fincham (2008). In their study
participants who reported perpetrating an interpersonal transgression as recently as three days
prior, were surveyed over a period of seven weeks. The results indicated that self-forgiveness
(measured as a single item) was linearly associated with time. As people forgave themselves,
guilt decreased and conciliatory behavior increased. However, to this point in time, Hall and
Fincham’s model has had mixed empirical support (for a review, see McConnell, 2015). We
identify three common aspects arising from models of naturally occurring self-forgiveness as
well as different contextual factors that appear to influence its progression. Unlike clinical
models, which prescribe an order of experiences, these three experiences do not imply a time
sequence, and no longitudinal research has tested the sequencing of the experiences.
Working through attributions of responsibility. Effective self-forgiveness requires that
the person make personal attributions of responsibility for wrongdoing or for failing to live up to
expectations or standards. But, what has occurred when such attributions are made? Does one
take appropriate or reasonable responsibility for one’s actions—and how much and what kind of
acknowledgement of one’s responsibility is publicly necessary, if any? What barriers impede
acceptance of personal responsibility (see Woodyatt, Wenzel, & deVel Palumbo, this volume)?
Coping with emotions that arise. When confronted with one’s actions involving
wrongdoing or failure, shame, guilt, remorse, anger, and other self-conscious emotions can arise.
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Part of self-forgiveness is likely to be to understand these emotions and their functions (see
Leach this edition; Gilbert this edition) and to allow them to be present without deflecting them,
avoiding them, or reverting to defensiveness or hopelessness. Strategies to meaningfully interpret
and successfully resolve these emotions may be required in order to help clients enact repair to
their self-image.
Repair of social, psychological, and perhaps spiritual relationships. Repair involves (at
least) two components. Conciliatory actions or amend-making to heal any hurt caused is needed
to facilitate social repair. In addition, other actions may be needed to repair one’s own sense of
self. (Worthington, 2013, suggested that people needed also to repair a third component: their
relationship to the Sacred—God, nature, or humanity, depending on what people hold to be
sacred.) Often these two (or three) occur together. While attempting these repairs can lead to
increase shame and guilt in the lead-up to conciliatory behaviour, it also allows individuals to
address underlying concerns that are associated with the ongoing experience of self-
condemnation. In the absence of a victim, actions to re-affirm values that have been violated
have been shown to have similar benefits (Woodyatt & Wenzel, 2014; Woodyatt et al., 2017).
Additionally, as noted by Jacinto and Edwards (2011), this may also involve re-entering
community, to re-establish one’s identity and the relationships that define the self.
Clinical Intervention Models
While there is no clear dominant clinical intervention model, there are several relationships
that one may consider that arise across models. Some models have been tested in controlled
experiments (Cornish & Wade, 2015b; Campana, 2011; Exline, Root, Yadavalli, Martin, &
Fisher, 2011; Griffin, Worthington, Lavelock, Greer, Lin, Davis, & Hook, 2015; Scherer,
Worthington, Hook, & Campana, 2011; Toussaint et al., 2014). Other articles are theoretical
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17
reflections (Enright et al., 1996; Jacinto & Edwards, 2011; Worthington, 2013). However, many
of the therapeutic processes do contain, to some extent and with varying foci, the process themes
we have identified above. You will see these themes reflected for example in Cornish and Wade
(2015a, 2015b), Griffin et al. (2015), based on Worthington’s (2013) six steps. These approaches
are all supported by basic research, but the interventions also rely on many other techniques to
make the core experiences palatable and engaging to clients and to set up a logical movement
through the core elements. The order of movement differs with different interventions, and each
intervention creates a persuasive and engaging flow. The other elements that are likely important
in intervention include motivating change, building hope and confidence in the specific
intervention the person is following, defining self-forgiveness in a way that helps structure the
treatment, focusing on a specific event to forgive rather than trying to globally change the
character, using concrete exercises that produce emotionally memorable experiences, making a
clearly demarcated decision or choice to forgive oneself, consolidating changes, and seeking to
help clients generalize the changes and the change process beyond the specific event that has
been the focus of the intervention. Several chapters contained in this book that review
approaches to individual psychotherapy (Cornish & Wade, this volume), group therapy
(Worthington, Griffin & Wade, this volume) and self-directed approaches (Griffin, Worthington,
Davis, and Bell, this volume).
Conclusions
Self-forgiveness is not easy, not in practice and not in research. Across the literature there
is relative consistency across definitions of self-forgiveness. Measurements that can be roughly
categorised as dispositional versus situational, end-state versus process, and hedonic (presence of
positive/absence of negative affect) versus eudaimonic (growth/change often considering what is
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18
good for oneself and others) versus dual focused. Measures of self-forgiveness have tended to be
largely dispositional and weighted towards hedonic conceptualizations. There are fewer state
measures (Wohl et al., 2008) and to date only one published measure assessing genuine self-
forgiveness as a process (Woodyatt & Wenzel, 2013). Researchers have tended to assess
emotions and cognitions more than motivation and definitely more than behaviour. Measurement
and observation of complex psychological experiences are inevitably flawed. As such, it is
important to have multiple measures of the construct and researchers continue to develop new
approaches.
In addition, as a process that unfolds over time there are still very few longitudinal studies
examining self-forgiveness (Fisher & Exline, 2010; Hall & Fincham, 2008; Woodyatt & Wenzel,
2013b). The vast majority of self-forgiveness studies tend to be cross-sectional. However, self-
forgiveness is a process of change and difficult to capture empirically because it unfolds in
different time frames and in different ways for different individuals. As surmised by Hall and
Fincham (2005), “[T]he realization of wrongdoing and acceptance of responsibility generally
initiate feelings of guilt and regret, which must be fully experienced before one can move toward
self-forgiveness” (pp. 626-627). This is the challenge of self-forgiveness, and of self-forgiveness
research: How is the experience of having done wrong worked through to move beyond the
experience of self-condemnation (Hall & Fincham, 2008; Fisher & Exline, 2006; Cornish &
Wade, 2015b) so that one can ‘play on’ in the future (Snow, 1993)?
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