Meneses, C. W., & Greenberg, L. S. (2014). Interpersonal Forgiveness In Emotion-focused Couples’ Therapy: Relating Process To Outcome. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 40(1), 49-67. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2012.00330.x
Key Terminology: “emotional injury” (El), Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI)
The purpose of this study was to examine married couples capacity for forgiveness after a significant transgression within the marriage. The second area of research was finding out the predictors of a partner’s willingness and ability to successfully forgive their spouse. The level of change was also measured by using scales on forgiveness, marital distress level, trust, and shame expression by the injurer, and shame acceptance by the injured. The objective of this study was to relate the Emotion Focus Therapy (EFT) counseling techniques to successful partner forgiveness.
This research sample population consisted of 33 randomly chosen married couples who were not separated or pending divorce and had attended at least 10 sessions of couple’s therapy. These sessions aimed at resolving varying emotional harm from transgression that were perceived to have violated their marriage relationship, which had left one or both of the partner’s feeling emotional injury (EI); betrayed, hurt and angry.
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The results of this study were based on analyzing the videotaped sessions. There were 16 therapists participating in this study, 2 were men and 14 were women. Of these 16 therapists, 4 were psychologists, 10 psychology doctoral students, and 2 were Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists. All the therapists had at least two years of psychotherapy experience and one year EFT training.
The study consisted of the dependent variables; assessed the relationship changes through providing various test and scales to the couples; testing the injuring partner’s shame level, the injured partner’s accepting response to the shame, the injured partner’s reported expression of forgiveness, and the changes in trust were analyzed.
The limitations of the study and area of needed further research include how do we define the concept and operation of shame and forgiveness.
Emotional injury (EI) symptoms; changes in levels of martial distress were found to rely mainly on the injured partner’s ability and willingness to accept of the injuring partner’s feelings of shame, which could lead to increased forgiveness. Forgiveness can be achieved through a process of reciprocating of positive affect and emotion. The theory that I am researching is if one partner expresses to their partner that they are feeling vulnerable, this invites the other partner to respond in a positive way, and both partners positive reactions can help to regulate the emotional state of each other over time.
