A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
The following pages are supplementary material for online publication
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A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
Appendix A
Adapted Core Components (Wade & Worthington, 2005) of the Forgiveness Intervention in Old Age
Component
Content
Goal
1. Define forgiveness
Discuss similarities and differences with related
To avoid confusion and further victimization
words such as reconciliation or forgetting
To clarify what forgiveness is (and what it is not)
Assist the participants in remembering the
To reduce the pain of the offense through catharsis
transgression within a supportive environment
To clarify the transgression situation
Take the perspective of the offender, and experience
To decrease negative thoughts and feelings
what she/he feels
To clarify the transgressors’ perspective
Remember and recall events when the participants
To remember how it feels to desire and receive
have been an offender him-/herself
forgiveness from another
Encourage the participants to forgive and to stick on
To keep forgiveness as a goal
2. Recall the hurt
3. Build empathy
4. Acknowledge own offenses
5. Commit to forgiveness
the forgiveness process
6. Overcome unforgiveness
Learn strategies to cope with anger, avoidance,
To reduce negative feelings and cognitions such as
rumination – not necessarily promotion of forgiveness anger, bitterness
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A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
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Appendix B
Additional Components of the Forgiveness Intervention in Old Age
Component
Content
Goal
1a. Recall forgiveness-
Remember forgiveness-relevant events in childhood,
To know one’s own life story, to understand and clarify
relevant childhood memories
reflecting which reaction patterns have been learned,
one’s own perspective and behavior
and compare them to actual forgiveness behavior
1b. Reanalysis of the
Recall the transgression from an observer perspective
To understand and clarify one’s own perspective and
transgression
and a protagonist perspective; separating facts from
behavior
reactions
2. Analysis of the role of
Identify and accept (negative) emotions,
emotions and one’s own
understanding individual emotion patterns
emotional reactions
To understand and clarify one’s own emotions
A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
Appendix C
Activities for the Two Sessions of the Forgiveness Intervention
Session 1
Steps
Content/description
1.
Introduction, ground rules for the group and overview of the
intervention
2.
Discussion of inter- and intraindividual differences in reactions to
interpersonal transgressions
 How do people react to a transgression?
 How do you typically (or in a specific situation) react to a
transgression?
3.
Discussion of the role of childhood experiences with interpersonal
transgressions and forgiveness
 How did your family (members) react in transgression situations?
Intent/goal
Modality
 To understand different reactions to
interpersonal transgression and to
clarify one’s own perspective and
behavior
Group discussion
 To understand one’s own past and
actual behavior in and after
interpersonal transgression
Individual reflection
followed by a group
discussion
 Did you ever see or hear that your mother or father said “sorry” to  To understand the role of
interpersonal transgressions in one’s
you or another person?
own life story
 Did you have to say “sorry” when you hurt someone or made a
mistake?
 Were you forgiven then?
 Do you see parallels from what you experienced in childhood to
your actual forgiveness behavior?
 Which strategies that you used in childhood were successful,
which not?
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A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
4.
5.
Clarification of what forgiveness is and what it is not by comparing
forgiveness with related concepts such as forgetting and
reconciliation
 To clarify what forgiveness is (and
what it is not)
Theoretical input about psychological models of forgiveness and
forgiveness research
 To get to know possible factors that
influence forgiveness, reasons and
benefits to forgive
 Which model fits best to your behavior?
 Is it always the same model or is it situation-, person- or relationspecific?
Exercise followed by
a group discussion
 To avoid confusion and further
victimization due to
misunderstanding of concepts
 To reflect one’s own forgiveness
behavior
Theoretical input
with individual
reflection followed
by a group discussion
 Which factors do have an influence on your forgiveness?
6.
Clarification of benefits and costs of forgiveness
 Which are the benefits of forgiving the transgressor?
7.
 To think about positive and negative
consequences of forgiveness
Exercise followed by
a group discussion
 Which are the costs of forgiving the transgressor?
 To think about benefits of
forgiveness for well-being
Acknowledgment of one’s own offenses (nobody is perfect)
Individual reflection
 To remember how it feels to wish
and receive forgiveness from another followed by a group
discussion
person
 Did you offend or hurt someone and regret it?
 How did you feel?
 Did you wish to be forgiven?
 Can you describe the feeling of being forgiven (or not being
forgiven)?
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A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
Session 2
Steps
1.
Content/description
Intent/goal
Introduction and overview of the second session
Modality
Dialog
 How did you feel the last few days?
2.
Recall the hurt
 What exactly happened?
 Which emotions, thoughts and behavior did this transgression
evoke/produce?
 To clarify the transgression
situation
 To reduce the pain of the offense
through catharsis
Individual reflection
and examples of
transgressions of the
participants
 How intense was the transgression when it happened (and how
intense is it actually)?
3.
Perception and acceptance of emotions
 Which emotion(s) did you have regarding the transgression?
 Persons differ in their typical emotion patterns: Do you know and
accept your typical emotion patterns?
4.
Attribution patterns and typical reactions
 Exercise: Tell the other group members a story about a personal
success and a personal failure. In the next step, think (and then tell)
the reason of this successful and failed event. (Afterwards
presentation of the different attribution patterns and their
consequences).
5.
Broadening the view of the transgressor: Change of perspective and
building empathy with a fictive transgression situation (according to
Linden, Rotter, Baumann, & Lieberei, 2008)
 To understand and clarify one’s
own emotions and emotional
patterns
Short theoretical input
followed by an
individual reflection
 To enhance the understanding of
the own attribution patterns and
thoughts
Exercise
 To change the perspective and to Exercise and group
build empathy for the transgressor discussion for the
fictive transgression,
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A Forgiveness Intervention for Older Adults
 Please put yourself into the place of the hurt person:
encouraging the
participants to reflect
their transgression
situation
 How would you feel?
 What would you think and do?
6.
Contextualism and long-term perspective of a transgression (according
to Linden et al., 2008)
 What could be a typical approach to this transgression for a
grandmother, a manager, or a psychologist?
 Imagine that in some years, the hurt person will write a biography.
How will she/he describe the situation then?
 To reduce negative feelings and
cognitions such as anger,
bitterness by creating distance
and thinking of different and even
positive perspectives
Exercise and group
discussion; working
with the fictive
example first, then
with the
transgressions
reported by the
participants
 To keep forgiveness as a goal
Individual reflection
and group discussion
 Painting a lifeline, for example with valleys, peaks and all the
important events: do you count more positive or more negative
events? Are there other transgressions that were intense when they
occurred but are painless now?
7.
Encouraging a commitment to forgive the transgressor
 Remember the benefits of forgiveness. Imagine how you would
feel.
8.
Integration and take-home-message
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